The Church of St Wilfrid is in Market Place, Standish,

Wigan Wigan ( ) is a town in Greater Manchester, England. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. It is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its ad ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester. ...

, England. It is an active

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

in the

Diocese of Blackburn The diocese of Blackburn is diocese of the Church of England in North West England. Its boundaries correspond to northern Lancashire. The diocese contains 211 parishes and 280 churches. Blackburn Cathedral is the seat of the bishop of Blackburn ...

. It is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

as a designated Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. The authors of the ''

Buildings of England The ''Pevsner Architectural Guides'' are four series of guide books to the architecture of the British Isles. ''The Buildings of England'' series was begun in 1945 by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, with its forty-six original volumes pub ...

'' series describe it as "one of the most interesting churches in Lancashire".

History

The church is first mentioned in 1205 but the vast extent of the ancient parish with its eleven townships ( Adlington, Anderton,

Charnock Richard Charnock Richard is a small village and civil parish in the borough of Chorley, Lancashire, in England. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 census was 1,748. History The village was named in the early 13th century by the local ...

, Coppull,

Duxbury Duxbury (alternative older spelling: "Duxborough") is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. A suburb located on the South Shore (Massachusetts), South Shore approximately to the southeast of Boston, the population was 16,090 ...

Heath Charnock Heath Charnock is a small village and civil parish of the Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001 it has a population of 2,065, reducing to 2,026 at the 2011 Census. Location Heath Charnock is next ...

, Langtree,

Shevington Shevington is a village and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. The population of the Wigan ward called Shevington and Lower Ground had increased to 11,482 at the 2011 Census. Lying within the h ...

, Standish, Welch Whittle and Worthington) points to a very early foundation. The Pilkington family of Lancashire have a long-standing connection to the church and mention is made in 1322 when Robert, heir of the Pilkington estates and his brother Adam in dispute with John De Dichfield and his brothers was agreed to be settled by the decision of Henry Le Walys, the Chaplain of Standish. The Rector of Standish was Roger Standish in 1477 and was in that year the last surviving trustee of the estates of Alexander Pilkington in Rivington and Mellor. He released the estates to the beneficiary being Roger Pilkington, who was Alexanders grandson on him attaining the age of majority. Roger Pilkington settled at

Rivington Rivington is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish of the Borough of Chorley, Lancashire, England, occupying . It is about southeast of Chorley and about northwest of Bolton. Rivington is a rural area consisting primarily of ...

where he made immediate improvements to Rivington Hall. Of the three

chantries A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings: # a chantry service, a set of Christian liturgical celebrations for the dead (made up of the Requiem Mass and the Office of the Dead), or # a chantry chapel, a bu ...

inside the Church, the Chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary was the earliest and was created in 1301, others were added later including the Altar of Our Lady, Chantry at the Altar of St. Nicholas and the Chantry of the Holy Cross otherwise known as the Rood Altar. The chantry at the altar of St Nicholas founded 1478 in the north aisle recorded formerly by a brass plate with an inscription in Latin to the effect that Robert Pylkington had been custodian and chaplain of this chantry and gave to the chantry a yearly revenue of six marks. He died on 6 May 1498. James Nevore was chantry priest at the date of the Commissioners' Report, and the chantry was endowed with land in Rivington, Whittle, Adlington, and Heath Charnock. The lands held at Rivington were purchased from the crown in 1583 by Thurston Anderton and included Higher Knowle farm, Lower Knowle farm and Grut farm, once located opposite the entrance of the current Rivington and Blackrod High School. The possession by the Crown was in consequence of the Abolition of Chantries Act 1547. An earlier record of 1574 recovering rents for the same properties to the benefit of the school suggests freehold and leasehold. It is likely the grant of the land dated to the time of the Pilkington endowment in 1478. The present church is believed to have been rebuilt between 1582 and 1584 and designed by Lawrence Shipway.
Lancashire: Liverpool and the Southwest
'. Yale University Press; 2006. . p. 590. It is in a blended Gothic and

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

style. During the 20th century the

Lancaster Lancaster may refer to: Lands and titles *The County Palatine of Lancaster, a synonym for Lancashire *Duchy of Lancaster, one of only two British royal duchies *Duke of Lancaster *Earl of Lancaster *House of Lancaster, a British royal dynasty ...

architects Austin and Paley carried out work on the church. In 1913–14 they added

vestries A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spent nearly one-fi ...

at the east end of the church, and in 1926 they built a

gatehouse A gatehouse is a type of fortified gateway, an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the most ...

at the entrance to the churchyard. The gatehouse is listed separately from the church at Grade II. The architects also supervised minor additions and repairs to the church in 1932 and 1939.

Architecture

Exterior

The tower is 19th century Gothic, of grey-black

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

. The prominent spire has an octagonal bell-stage. The remainder of the church is of yellow-black

gritstone Gritstone or grit is a hard, coarse-grained, siliceous sandstone. This term is especially applied to such sandstones that are quarried for building material. British gritstone was used for millstones to mill flour, to grind wood into pulp for ...

. The

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-type ...

and

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

are

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia (a female per ...

, from 1582 to 1584. Of the nave,

Simon Jenkins Sir Simon David Jenkins FLSW (born 10 June 1943) is a British author, a newspaper columnist and editor. He was editor of the ''Evening Standard'' from 1976 to 1978 and of ''The Times'' from 1990 to 1992. Jenkins chaired the National Trust f ...

, in ''England's Thousand Best Churches'', writes: "The nave arches seem undecided between Gothic and classical. They have tentative columns of a Tuscan order, while the arches above are Gothic, a most strange 'transitional' form."

Interior

Jenkins describes the church as having "... the finest roof in Lancashire, worthy of Somerset's best. This is a Tudor work of panels and cross-braces covering nave, aisles and, most elaborate, the chancel. The vicar has studied the bosses and claims that no two are the same". The pew ends in the Standish family chapel display the family crest of an owl with a rat.

Monuments

The churchyard, which is divided into old and new sections, contains the

war graves A war grave is a burial place for members of the armed forces or civilians who died during military campaigns or operations. Definition The term "war grave" does not only apply to graves: ships sunk during wartime are often considered to b ...

of four service personnel of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, and nine of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

; most of the graves are in the new section.

External links

Notes on the Parish Church of St. Wilfred, Standish
- William Frederick Price, 17 November 1904

References

Citations Sources * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Church of Saint Wilfrid, Standish (section) Churches completed in 1584 Standish Standish Standish English Gothic architecture in Greater Manchester Renaissance architecture in England Austin and Paley buildings Buildings and structures in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan Diocese of Blackburn Standish, Greater Manchester