A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



marked, however, on the outside by a very slight 

 difference in height, the total length being 75 ft., and 

 are open on each side to the aisles by an arcade of 

 five pointed arches. The east end of the chancel, 

 which is 1 5 ft. wide, is inclosed north and south for 

 a length of 7 ft. by a blank wall, and the aisles, which 

 are unequal in width, are continued the full length 

 of the chancel, the east wall of the building being 

 straight and unbroken, but they stop short of the full 

 length of the nave at the west end. The wider north 

 aisle is under a separate gabled roof of equal height to 

 that of the nave, but the nave roof is continued over 

 the south aisle at a slightly flatter pitch. Both roofs 

 are covered with stone slates and have overhanging 

 eaves, and the walls are constructed of local rubble 

 without plinth, but with buttresses of two stages and 

 diagonal ones at the angles. 



The church is largely an early 16th-century re- 

 building of an older edifice, which, judging from the 

 north arcade and the piscina in the chancel, seems to 

 have been of 13th-century date. Little or nothing, 

 however, can be said with certainty about the plan 

 or extent of this early building, as the later recon- 

 struction has made the architectural evidence rather 

 elusive, but the plan suggests that the church had 

 north and south aisles in mediaeval times and that 

 having become dilapidated the south aisle was rebuilt 

 about 1 506 with a new spacing of the bays to which 

 it was intended to adapt the north arcade. In the 

 end the north arcade, however, perhaps because it 

 was in a better state of preservation, was left more or 

 less as it was, but the piers were largely rebuilt and 

 new caps introduced, fragments of the oldei work 

 being used up. 6 There are no traces of an ancient 

 chancel, but if such existed eastward of the present 

 plan it was probably destroyed before the end of the 

 1 6th century. There is, however, no evidence of 

 this and the character of the original eastern termina- 

 tion can only be surmised. The I 3th-century piscina 

 in the short length of the present chancel wall is 

 probably not in its original position, but if it is, then 

 it is possible that the 1 3th-century church consisted of 

 a nave extending only as far as the third pier of the 

 north arcade from the east, but possibly further west- 

 ward. The two west arches are wider than the 

 others and the capital of the pier in question is of a 

 more or less nondescript character. It is scarcely 

 likely that the present arrangement of plan without 

 a structural chancel is that which originally obtained. 

 The tower is an addition or rebuilding of the early 

 1 6th century, to which period the rest of the build- 

 ing, where not modern, belongs. In 1702 the 

 church is said to have been reseated, in 1754 a gallery 

 was erected at the west end of the nave, and in 1 8 1 1 

 a considerable amount of repairs seems to have been 

 done. 6 Previous to 1872 the exterior was white- 

 washed, 7 but in that year a thorough restoration of the 

 building was commenced, the roof being found to be 

 dilapidated, the tower unsafe and the masonry of the 

 windows decayed. The north and south walls and 

 south porch were then rebuilt, the ceiling and gallery 

 removed and the church seated with open benches. 



6 Fragments of i+th-eentury tracery work are said to have 

 been discovered during the 1872-3 restoration in different parts 

 of the building ; T. C. Smith, Hist, of Chipping, 70. 



8 The churchwardens' accounts show a payment in that year 

 of /07 hi. g%d. for repairs. 



Glynne, Churches of Lanes. Glynne visited Chipping in 



There was a partial renovation of the building in 



! 9°9- 



The chancel is 2 5 ft. 9 in. long, occupying the two 

 easternmost bays, but the wood screen which formerly 

 stood in line with the second pier has disappeared, 8 

 and the chancel is now only differentiated from the 

 nave by the raising of the floor and the arrangement 

 of the seating. The east window, the mullions of 

 which have been renewed, is of five cinquefoiled 

 lights with hollow-chamfered jambs and external 

 hood mould and a low elliptical-arched head without 

 tracery. The 1 3th-century piscina in the south wall 

 has a trefoiled head, edge-roll moulding and nail-head 

 ornament, but its bowl is gone. In the north wall is 

 a recess with pointed head, 16 in. wide, originally an 

 opening but now built up and used as a credence. 

 The roofs and fittings of the chancel together with 

 those of the rest of the church are modern, the oak 

 quire stalls being erected in 1909. The walls 

 throughout are plastered internally. 



The north arcade has five pointed arches of two 

 chamfered orders springing from octagonal piers, 

 1 ft. 9 in. in diameter and 6 ft. in height to the top 

 of the caps. The arches may be the original 

 13th-century ones and some parts of the caps, as 

 already stated, are probably of this date. Three of 

 these caps follow the section of the piers and are 

 simply moulded with a plain square upper and 

 rounded lower member. One of them is quite 

 plain, but the other two are carved in the neck 

 with, for the most part, very elementary patterns 

 such as an unskilled carver might naturally use at 

 any period, and are probably of the time of the 

 16th-century rebuilding. On two sides of the 

 westernmost cap, however, there are representations 

 of mediaeval tracery of a type common c. 1 300, 

 consisting of two small circles, one with quatrefoil 

 cusping and the other of the ' rose tournante ' type, 

 and a pointed ' window ' of three lights with the 

 mullions intersecting in the head, and on the same 

 cap a dragon also occurs. It seems likely, however, 

 that all this work is of one date, the new capitals 

 being carved by a workman of eclectic tastes having 

 a general knowledge of mediaeval forms. The ' rose 

 tournante ' occurs also on the base of the font, which 

 is of 1 6th-century date. The cap of the third pier 

 from the east is a made-up one and on the east side 

 is carved with four heads and a beak which seem to 

 be original 1 3th-century work, and the west respond 

 has also two heads apparently of equal date. The 

 impost of the east respond, however, suggests rough 

 work of early 16th-century type, and is evidently 

 coeval with the patterns on the two caps to which 

 reference has already been made. The late date of 

 these seems clear from the introduction of a pointed 

 ' window ' as an ornament in a horizontal position, 

 suggesting a period when mediaeval forms were 

 copied without being understood. The south arcade 

 consists of five pointed arches of two chamfered orders 

 on octagonal piers 1 6 in. in diameter, with moulded 

 caps and chamfered bases, 9 ft. high to the top of the 

 cap, and spaced without reference to the piers on the 



1867. The whole church was then 'out of condition ' and the 

 fittings bad. 



8 Glynne in 1867 noted that 'the base of the wood sere n 

 remains across the second pier from the east, and has somf 

 original panelling.' 



22 



