St Saviour's Church is an

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of t ...

chapel in

Stydd The manor of Stydd is in the county of Lancashire. It is situated on the north eastern edge of the village of Ribchester. It has three notable buildings: St Saviour's Church, a set of almshouses''Parliamentary Papers'', Volume 79 (1908), p. 336 a ...

, a hamlet near

Ribchester Ribchester is a village and civil parish within the Ribble Valley district of Lancashire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Ribble, northwest of Blackburn and east of Preston. The village has a long history with evidence of Bronze ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancas ...

, England. It has been designated a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

History

There is evidence of a community at Stydd from the 12th century and there has been a place of worship on the site since no later than the 13th century, possibly since 1190. The church is the only one surviving of a group of buildings acquired by the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headq ...

s in the late 13th century. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, archaeological excavations were undertaken of the area by staff and pupils of nearby

Stonyhurst College Stonyhurst College is a co-educational Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition, on the Stonyhurst Estate, Lancashire, England. It occupies a Grade I listed building. The school has been fully co-educational sinc ...

. Although evidence of buildings surrounding the church was found, identification of their use and date were inconclusive.

Architecture

Exterior

The church is constructed in

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicat ...

rubble and has a stone slate roof with simple tie beam

truss A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembl ...

es. It has a simple rectangular plan consisting of a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-typ ...

and

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a sa ...

under one roof, with a porch to the south-west. It has no tower. There are square angled

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

es to each corner. There is a doorway on the north side that has a single-

chamfer A chamfer or is a transitional edge between two faces of an object. Sometimes defined as a form of bevel, it is often created at a 45° angle between two adjoining right-angled faces. Chamfers are frequently used in machining, carpentry, ...

ed arch. The south doorway is protected by the porch. The west wall has a blocked up doorway. It has a two-centred arch of two moulded

orders Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of ...

. There are two Norman windows in the north wall; they are narrow chamfered lights with semi-circular heads. The east window has three lights and the west has two lights; both have intersecting Y-

tracery Tracery is an architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support the ...

. The south wall has two three-light windows in the

Perpendicular style Perpendicular Gothic (also Perpendicular, Rectilinear, or Third Pointed) architecture was the third and final style of English Gothic architecture developed in the Kingdom of England during the Late Middle Ages, typified by large windows, four-ce ...

; one has round heads, the other has cusped

ogee An ogee ( ) is the name given to objects, elements, and curves—often seen in architecture and building trades—that have been variously described as serpentine-, extended S-, or sigmoid-shaped. Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combinat ...

heads.

Interior and fittings

The interior of the church measures by . It has a flagged floor and plastered and whitewashed walls. There is a

piscina A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a piscina. For Roman Ca ...

at the east end of the south wall, with a trefoil head, but no bowl. There is no architectural division between the nave and the sanctuary, although the floor of the latter is slightly raised. There is an oak panelled screen between the two that dates from the 17th or 18th century. The oak

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, acces ...

stands against the south wall; it is octagonal with square panels and sits on a stone base. It has a set of stone steps. The octagonal sandstone

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a " sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mo ...

is Late

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the '' perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It c ...

in style and has well-preserved carvings of shields. There are stone monuments to Sir Adam and Lady Alicia Clitheroe, and to Bishop Francis Petre.

References

Footnotes

Sources

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Stydd, St Saviour's Church Church of England church buildings in Lancashire

Grade I listed churches in Lancashire Saviour's, Styyd