In 1835 a faculty of confirmation was issued from the Consistory Court of Chester by which pews were assigned to the contributors of the building fund and other parishioners. In 1849, Dr. Gibson described the building as "oblong and barn-like, with a few blunt-arched windows in its dirty yellow walls, and overtopped at its western extremity by an unsightly black superstructure of rough stone, which some might call a small square tower badly proportioned, and others, with apparently equal correctness, the stump of a large square chimney." In 1866 the same writer, in a paper read to the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, said:--"The church of Coniston, which occupies a position central to the village, is a chapel of ease under Ulverston, with a stipend of £146, recently augmented, derived from land, houses, bounty, dividends and fees. It was rebuilt in 1819 on the site of an older edifice. The only part of the former church that remains is the belfry tower, which, being out of keeping and small in proportion to the body of the present building, confers but little ecclesiastical and no architectural distinction upon it." The late Mr. Roger Bownass, in marginal pencillings on this paper, noted:--"This is an error. The Belfry Tower was wholly rebuilt at the same time as the church, i.e., in 1818-19; the writer of this note having seen the old Tower pulled down, and new Foundations laid; One reason for the Landowners rebuilding the Church (which they did chiefly at their own expense) being the alleged state of the old Tower, the Bells of which, the Sexton pretended he durst not ring for fear he should bring the Tower down about his ears, though it was so difficult to get it down. So strongly was it built and cemented together that it had to be cut through nearly, near its base, before it could be brought down." Mr. Bownass goes on to say that his father, as one of the guarantees, contributed nearly £50, "which his widow had to pay, he himself dying before it was finished, and was the first person carried into the Church while the shavings, etc., lay on the floor, as the writer, his son, of 6 years of age, can well remember."