Our Churches and Chapels: Their Parsons, Priests, & Congregations: Being a Critical and Historical Account of Every Place of Worship in PrestonAtticus
History
Our Churches and Chapels: Their Parsons, Priests, & Congregations: Being a Critical and Historical Account of Every Place of Worship in Preston
Atticus
Preston (Lancashire, England) -- Church history
For seven months after this, there was no regular minister at the
place; still it didn't go down; several energetic, zealous laymen
looked after it and the schools established in connection with it,
and, considering their calibre, they did a good work. But they
couldn't keep up a full and continuous fire; a properly stationed
minister was needed; and Mr. Thompson, who had in the meantime
entered holy orders, was summoned from Blackenall, in Staffordshire,
to take charge of the church and district. In 1863 he came; under
his ministrations the congregation soon augmented; and in a short
time a movement was started for a new church; the old building being
a ricketty, inconvenient, rudely-dismal place, quite insufficient
for the requirements of the locality. The principal friends of the
new movement were R. Newsham, the late J. Bairstow, J. Horrocks, and
T. Miller, Esqrs., and what they subscribed constituted a
substantial nucleus guaranteeing the commencement of operations. In
1866, the old edifice was pulled down to make way for a new church,
and during the work of re-construction divine service was performed
in Vauxhall-road schools, which were, sometime after Mr. Thompson's
appointment, transferred by the Rev. Canon Parr from the Parish
Church's to St. Saviour's district. R. Newsham, Esq., laid the
corner-stone of St. Saviour's Church on the 26th of November, 1866;
the building was consecrated by the Bishop of Manchester, on the
29th of October, 1868; on the 9th of December in that year, the Rev.
W. D. Thompson was licensed to its incumbency; and on the 16th of
April, 1869, the district was "legally assigned" by the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners.
St. Saviour's--designed by Mr. Hibbert, architect, of this town--is
one of the handsomest and best finished churches we have seen. It
almost seems too good for the district in which it is situated. The
style of it is Gothic. Externally its most striking feature is the
tower. We thought at one time, when the tower had been run up a
considerable distance, that it was positively "going to the dogs."
At each of its angles there is a strange arrangement of dogs; they
bristle out on all sides, and are not over good looking--are thin,
hungry, weird-looking animals, appear to have had a hard time of it
somewhere, and to be doing their best to escape from the stone
whence they are protruding. But the pinnacles placed above have
completely taken away their grotesqueness, their malicious,
suspicious appearance, and the tower now looks beautiful. There are
three entrances to the church--one at the back, another at the
north-western corner, and the third beneath the tower on the south-
western side. If you please we will enter by the door on the last-
named side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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