A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



place, and is still standing. It contained the public 

 offices and a lock-up house, and a quit-rent was paid 

 for It to the lord of the manor.' The present town 

 hall dates from 1879. A police station was built in 

 1869. 



The markets are held every TuesJ.iy and Saturday 

 in the market-place. The butter market is below 

 the town hall. Formerly the markets were held by 

 the market cross, but in 1826 the lord of the manor 

 provided a new market-place, receiving the tolls from 

 it.' The old Tuesday market was the only one in 

 1824, but fish was brought in great plenty from the 

 Ribble and sea coast two or three days a week.' 

 The ancient fair is represented by one on 20 August 

 (old 9 August) ; others, as already recorded, have 

 come into use a week after Easter, the first Saturday 

 in September and 2 I October. 



Waterworks were established by private enterprise 

 as long ago as 1823, near St. Thomas's Square; 

 these were discontinued in 1832, when a new com- 

 pany was formed, and larger works were erected in 

 1846-9.' The undertaking was purcli.ued by the 

 Liverpool Corporation under the Rivington water- 

 works scheme, and the town is now supplied by 

 Liverpool. The first gas-works were not intended 

 for the public service, but a company was formed in 

 1819 to develop them, and erected gas-works in 

 Water Street in I 83 3.* These have been acquired 

 and augmented by the town. Sewage disposal 

 works w ere formed in 1 894 and refuse destructors in 

 1904. The public library, opened in 1899, ii the 

 gift of Mr. H. T. Parke. It had had temporary 

 forerunners in the newsrooms established in 1789 

 and in 1826 and the Union Library in 1814. A 

 Mc-hanics' Institution, which had a librar}-, was 

 Inrmed in 1844, '""^> ^f'" •' failure, was reilved.' 

 The Coronation Pleasure Grounds were opened in 

 1902. The cemetery was first formed in 1857, and 

 has been enlarged more recently.' 



The RawclifFe Hospital and Dispensary was built 

 and furnished by Mr. Henry RawclifFe ; other bene- 

 f.ictors have added their gifts. The dispensary \^ .is 

 first opened in 182S.' A savings bank was 

 established in 1845. There are also in the town a 

 theatre, a public hall, banU and several institutes 

 and club-rooms. 



Chorlcy gives a title to one of the Parliamentary 

 divisions of the county, and is the head of a rural 

 Jisirict council. The workhouse was built in iS-i. 

 The church of ST. L^WREyCE 

 CHURCH stands at the north side of the town, 

 the ground falling from it on its north 

 and west sides. The road here descends somewhat 

 abruptly,' and from a low level a flight of stone 

 steps led from a doorway, still existing, to a former 

 entrance at the north-west end of the building. The 

 church consists of a chancel with north vestry and 

 south aisle, nave with wide north and south aisles 

 under separate gabled roofs, south porch and western 

 tower. Only the chancel, nave and tower, however, 

 belong to the original structure, and of this ven- little 

 of the ancient work remains externally except in the 



stonework of the tower and in the nave gable and 

 north wall of the chancel. Up to 1859-61, when 

 the aisles were erected and other alter.itions took 

 place, the building was a small structure consisting of 

 a chancel 32 ft. by 16 ft. 3 in., nave 57 ft. 6 in. by 

 27 ft. 6 in., and west tower 10 ft. by 9 ft.,'" dating 

 probably from the beginning of the 1 5th century. 



The tower is practically all that now remains 

 externally of the old church, the walls of the nave 

 having necessarily been pulled down to make way for 

 the present arcades when the aisles were erected. An 

 illustration of the building from the south-west as it 

 existed in 1850 shows the nave to have been lighted 

 on the south side by three square-headed windows, 

 the insertion probably of a later date, the middle one 

 of which seems to have been at that time used as a 

 doorway approached by an external flight of stone 

 steps to the then existing south gallery. The wall 

 of the nave had an embattled parapet and the end 

 buttresses terminated in crocketed pinnacles. The 

 roof of the chancel, which is lower than that of the 

 nave, had overhanging eaves. Sir Stephen Glynne, 

 who visited the church previous to the alterations, 

 described the effect of the interior as ' sadly impaired 

 by a wretched irregularity of arrangement — pews are 

 intermixed with the original open seats, a gallery 

 built against the south wall of the nave, and a doul Ic 

 one at the west end ; the upper one contains the 

 organ, and comes so near to the roof that the case of 

 the organ has been cut in order to fit the space 

 remaining for it.' " 



The aspect of the church has been so entirely 

 altered both inside and out by the addition of the 

 modern aisles, and the greater part of the old work 

 has been to effectually restored or destroyed, that the 

 building has not now very much architectural interest. 

 The walling is of ashlar, the aisles having embattled 

 parapets with stone gables at the ends, and the roofs 

 to the chancel and chancel aisle, the latter of which 

 has a kind of projecting transept, have overhanging 

 eaves. The chancel and nave roofs are covered with 

 blue slates and those of the aisles with green. The 

 chancel has a three-light traceried east window and a 

 two-light window on the north, both being modern, 

 and a door on the north side to the vestry; the south 

 side, except for a length of about 4 ft. at the east and 

 where the old wall is preserved, is open to the aisle 

 under a modern arcade of two arches springing from 

 corbels and a centre circular pillar. Consequent 

 upon the removal of the wall and substitution of the 

 arcade the width of the chancel is now increased for 

 the greater part of its length to l 7 ft. 6 in. The 

 walls, which are 3 ft. 6 in. thick, are plastered and 

 painted, and the roof has a semicircular plaster ceiling. 

 The floor, which is flagged, is on the same level as 

 that of the nave, and the sanctuary is raised by three 

 steps only 16 in. above it, an arrangement which robs 

 the east end of the building of much distinction. On 

 the south side, at a height of only 8 in. above the floor, 

 and at a distance of 2 ft. from the east wall, is a small 

 opening, now glazed and barred, and therefore difficult 

 of examination, but apparently a piscina, though its 



' Bainn, op. ax. iii, 422, 



' Ibid. 



' BaLnes, Lana. Dir. i, 60 1 . 



* .Mannci, Mid-Lanci. Dir, {1854), 



•I- 



ib:d. 



« Ibid. 



' Baines, Lanes, (ed. 1870), i', 126. 



® Mannci, op. cit. 133. 



'This road is now called Water 

 Street, The present wide and spacious 

 P-rk Road was not constructed earli-.-r 



144 



than 1821 ; Wilson, Chorltyi of ChorUy, 

 12. 



'° All these are internal dimension!. 



" Ch. tf Land. (Chet. Soc, new 

 series}, p. 29. Tiie date of the yisit is 

 not given. 



