WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



time, but has in its turn given place to a later build- 

 ing. In the fifteenth century the chancel was rebuilt 

 or remodelled, the south nave doorway blocked, and a 

 new doorway with a porch over it inserted farther 

 to the west, as the thirteenth-century extension of the 

 nave westward had made the old south doorway seem 

 inconveniently far to the east, and the west wall of 

 the nave refaced or rebuilt. The north arcade was 

 rebuilt about the same time. The large north aisle 

 dates from the middle of the sixteenth century, and 

 about the same time the north chapel was length- 

 ened eastward to the line of the east wall of the 

 chancel. The vestry north of the chapel seems to be 

 of seventeenth-century date. In recent years the 

 chancel has been completely rebuilt in fifteenth-cen- 

 tury style, a copy of the twelfth-century doorway of the 

 nave inserted in the north wall of the north chapel, the 

 roofs, except that of the nave, renewed, and the west 

 window and part of the south porch rebuilt. The 

 church is faced with the wrought stone of local origin, 

 of much the same quality throughout ; the best 

 masonry is to be seen in the tower, but the material 

 does not admit of elaborate workmanship. 



Of ancient ritual arrangements no trace exists, 

 though the sixteenth-century canopied niche on the 

 east jamb of the south-east window of the nave may 

 have been connected with the south nave altar. 1 The 

 chancel, having been completely rebuilt in 1876, 

 is of no archaeological interest. The east window 

 is of five lights, and there are three four-light windows 

 and a doorway on the south. An arcade of two bays 

 opens into the north chapel, and in the eastern part 

 of the north wall is a recess containing a monument. 

 The disproportionately large corbels of the modern 

 roof perpetuate the memory of some interesting carv- 

 ings in the roof of the old chancel, which disappeared 

 at the rebuilding. The chancel arch is of two orders, 

 with engaged shafts with octagonal capitals and bases. 

 The north chapel * is of two dates, the western part 

 being the earlier. Its north wall between the tower 

 and the vestry shows masonry similar to that in the 

 south wall of the nave, and is probably of the same 

 date, the first half of the thirteenth century. On the 

 east face of the tower is the weathering for a steep- 

 pitched roof which formerly covered the chapel, but has 

 long been replaced by one of a lower pitch. No archi- 

 tectural features of original date remain, and the eastern 

 part of the north wall is hidden by the vestry, so that 

 its exact termination in this direction is unknown ; it 

 was, perhaps, some ten feet short of the east wall of 

 the chancel. Coming to the present east wall of the 

 chapel it will be noted that at the south end of its 

 east face, where it abuts on the modern chancel, there 

 is a length of old plinth with projecting footings, ap- 

 parently of the fifteenth century, against which the 

 plinth of the east wall of the chapel stops. The foot- 

 ings and plinth have belonged to a buttress running 

 north from the chancel wall, and show that in the 

 fifteenth century the eastern part of the chancel stood 

 free on the north side, or in other words that the 

 north chapel did not extend as far east as the chancel. 

 But at a later date, which from the character of the 

 work may be the second half of the sixteenth century, 

 the chapel was lengthened eastwards to its present 

 size. Its east window is square-headed, of three tre- 



1 An altar of St. Nicholas is mentioned in 1526; Piccope, 

 Mils (Chet. Soc.), i, 6. 



" Called the ' Little Chancel' or Plumbe chapel. Information 

 from Rev. W. A. Wickham. 



AUGHTON 



foiled lights, which seem to be old work re-used, 

 of late fourteenth century date, and perhaps formed 

 part of the east window of the chapel before its 

 extension. 



The tower, which stands to the north of the nave, 

 between the north chapel and the north aisle, is of 

 three stages, square below and octagonal above, with 

 an octagonal spire. It is of the type of the neigh- 

 bouring towers of Halsall and Ormskirk, but earlier 

 than either, being of the first half of the fourteenth 

 century. The octagonal spire has two tiers of spire 

 lights, those in the upper tier being single trefoiled 

 openings under a crocketed gablet, and those in the 

 lower having two trefoiled lights with a quatrefoil in 

 the head and a crocketed gablet as in the upper tier. 

 At the base of the spire is a plain parapet set out on 

 moulded corbel-courses. The octagonal belfry stage 

 has four two-light windows, trefoiled, with a quatre- 

 foil in flowing tracery in the head and a moulded 

 label. The next stage below forms the transition 

 from octagon to square, and has a single trefoiled 

 light in the north face. On the east and west faces 

 are weather-mouldings for steep-pitched roofs long 

 since destroyed. The lowest stage of the tower is 

 square, with a window in the north face, once of two 

 lights, but now without tracery, two massive but- 

 tresses at east and west of the same face, and a fine 

 moulded plinth of three stages, which stops without a 

 return against the wall of the north chapel, the 

 evidence being clear that the chapel wall is older than 

 the tower. Internally the tower has open arches of 

 two plain chamfered orders, without capitals or shafts, 

 on the south, west, and east, and a vice in the north- 

 west angle. In the north wall below the window is 

 a recess 1 8 in. deep with a cusped and moulded arch, 

 with a label of the same date as the tower. Its floor 

 is considerably above the level of that under the 

 tower which has been lowered some six inches from 

 its original level and though probably sepulchral, 

 it shows no trace of a slab or monument of any 

 kind. 



The nave retains in its south wall the only 

 remaining part of a probably aisleless church of about 

 1150. The blocked south doorway, of this date, is 

 of two plain orders, with jamb-shafts with scalloped 

 capitals and moulded bases. The blocking dates 

 from the fifteenth century, at which time a doorway 

 was inserted in the twelfth-century wall to the west 

 of the original doorway. Walling of the first date 

 exists on both sides of the blocked doorway, stopping 

 in the one direction a little to the west of the south 

 porch, in the other below the east jamb of the 

 window next the doorway. The plain weathered 

 plinth of the first date stops at this point, and another 

 plinth of slightly different section runs eastward at a 

 higher level to the buttress at the eastern angle of the 

 nave. This plinth and the walling above it belong 

 to a rebuilding, partly with the old materials, in the 

 thirteenth century ; the same type of walling con- 

 tinues westward from the end of the twelfth-century 

 masonry to within eighteen inches of the west wall of 

 the nave, and contains a blocked lancet window, now 

 almost completely hidden by a sixteenth-century 

 buttress. The whole length of the south wall has 

 been thrust outwards, probably by an insufficiently 

 tied roof, and the upper part has been rebuilt or 

 heightened, and set back to the vertical line, while a 

 buttress has been added, as has been said, in front of 

 the lancet window in the sixteenth century, and 



287 



