- St James' Church, Briercliffe
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St James' Church, Briercliffe 
St James' Church, Briercliffe, from the eastLocation in Lancashire
St James' Church, BriercliffeCoordinates: 53°48′39″N 2°12′10″W / 53.8107°N 2.2028°W OS grid reference SD 867 349 Location Church Street, Briercliffe, Lancashire Country England Denomination Anglican Website St James, Briercliffe History Dedication Saint James the Great Consecrated 26 September 1941 Architecture Status Parish church Functional status Active Heritage designation Grade II Designated 10 March 1987 Architect(s) Edmund Sharpe
Paley and AustinArchitectural type Church Style Gothic Revival Groundbreaking 1839 Completed 1992 Specifications Materials Sandstone, slate roof Administration Parish St James, Briercliffe Deanery Burnley Archdeaconry Blackburn Diocese Blackburn Province York Clergy Vicar(s) Rev Rachel Watts Laity Reader J. C. Scott, S. M. Lee Churchwarden(s) A. Oldham, Mrs J. Berry Parish administrator Mrs L. Rogers St James' Church, Briercliffe, is in Church Street, Briercliffe, Lancashire, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Burnley, the archdeaconry of Blackburn and the diocese of Blackburn.[1] The church has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II listed building.[2]
Contents
History
St James was built in 1839–41 and designed by the Lancaster architect Edmund Sharpe.[3] The church cost about (£90,000 as of 2011),[4] most of which was raised by public subscription, and the land was given by the Duke of Buccleuch. It was consecrated on 26 September 1841 by Rt Revd John Bird Sumner, Bishop of Chester.[5] In 1869 a new steeple was added to the church and other changes were made to the church by Paley and Austin, Sharpe's successors in his Lancaster practice.[6] In 1881 new pews were installed and the old pulpit was removed.[5] In 1992 the choir vestry was enlarged and a meeting room was built.[7]
Architecture
Exterior
The church is constructed in sandstone with a stone slate roof, and is in Early English Gothic style. Its plan consists of a nave with a short chancel and a tower at the west end. The roof is steeply pitched and divided into three, although internally the church consists of a single chamber with a flat ceiling. The nave is divided into bays by pilaster buttresses, between which are lancet windows. The tower is partly embraced by gabled pseudo-aisles, and is in two stages. The lower stage contains a west door, above which are lancets and gables. From this rises an octagonal drum containing a belfry with lancets, and over this is a short octagonal spire. At the east end is a stepped triple lancet window.[2]
Interior
Inside the church are galleries on three sides supported by cast iron columns; the galleries contain box pews.[2] The two-manual organ was built in 1865 by Foster and Andrews of Hull. Improvements were made by the same firm in 1901 and 1906. In 1927 Jardine and Company of Manchester cleaned the organ and in 1989 they restored it.[8]
Assessment
In the Buildings of England series it is described as "a small, rather strange church",[3] but Hughes disagrees, saying "it is one of Edmund Sharpe's more delightful designs".[5] In the National Heritage List for England the description states that it is an "unusually unaltered example of an early 19th-century church".[2]
Present day
Services are held on Sundays and during the week on Wednesdays and Thursdays. The church is open for visitors every Wednesday afternoon.[7]
See also
- List of architectural works by Edmund Sharpe
- List of ecclesiastical works by Paley and Austin
References
- ^ St James, Briercliffe, Church of England, http://www.achurchnearyou.com/briercliffe-st-james/, retrieved 13 April 2010
- ^ a b c d "Church of St James, Briercliffe", The National Heritage List for England (English Heritage), 2011, http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1072658, retrieved 12 May 2011
- ^ a b Hartwell, Clare; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2009) [1969], Lancashire: North, The Buildings of England, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, p. 170, ISBN 978-0-300-12667-9
- ^ UK CPI inflation numbers based on data available from Lawrence H. Officer (2010) "What Were the UK Earnings and Prices Then?" MeasuringWorth.
- ^ a b c Hughes, John M. (2010), Edmund Sharpe: Man of Lancaster, John M. Hughes, pp. 172, 177–178
- ^ Price, James (1998), Sharpe, Paley and Austin: A Lancaster Architectural Practice 1836–1942, Lancaster: Centre for North-West Regional Studies, p. 81, ISBN 1-86220-054-8
- ^ a b Briercliffe, St James, The Open Churches Trust, http://www.openchurchestrust.org.uk/Churches/Briercliffe.htm, retrieved 13 April 2010
- ^ Lancashire, Briercliffe - St. James, Church Street, British Institute of Organ Studies, http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=S00063, retrieved 13 April 2010
External links
Media related to St James' Church, Briercliffe at Wikimedia CommonsCategories:- Church of England churches in Lancashire
- Grade II listed churches
- Grade II listed buildings in Lancashire
- Gothic Revival architecture in England
- Religious buildings completed in 1841
- 19th-century Church of England church buildings
- Buildings and structures completed in 1992
- Diocese of Blackburn
- Edmund Sharpe buildings
- Paley and Austin buildings
- Buildings and structures in Burnley
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