Rivington Church

Coordinates: 53°37′30″N 2°34′05″W / 53.625°N 2.568°W / 53.625; -2.568

Rivington Church

Rivington Church
Rivington Church
Position of the church in the Borough of Chorley
53°37′30″N 2°34′05″W / 53.625°N 2.568°W / 53.625; -2.568
Location Rivington, Lancashire, England
Country England
Denomination Anglican
Website http://www.bhrmp.co.uk/rivington/
History
Founded 1566 (1566)
Architecture
Functional status Active
Heritage designation Grade II Listed building
Specifications
Materials Sandstone

Rivington Church is an active Church of England parish church in Rivington, Lancashire, England. The church has been designated a Grade II listed building.[1] The church has no patron saint and is not named after a saint or martyr. It has been variously called St. Lawrence, St. George, Holy Trinity, and St. Catherine, but its correct title is Rivington Church.[2]

History

The earliest reference to a church in Rivington is in a deed of 1280 mentioning three acres of "terra ecclesiastical".[3] A Saxon font, found in the locality, is housed in the Millennium Room at the church.[4] When repairs were carried out to the church flooring, the foundations of an earlier building were discovered, possibly Saxon in origin.[3] In a settlement of the enclosure of manorial waste in 1536 the Priest here was given 30 acres (12 ha).[5]

Richard Pilkington of Rivington Hall, father of Bishop James Pilkington, appealed to Doctor Bird, the Bishop of Chester, to dedicate a chapel and chapelyard and he consecrated them in October 1541.[4] At the consecration, the village residents stated on oath they had worshipped at the site for generations. Queen Elizabeth I, at the petition of James Pilkington the first Protestant Bishop of Durham, granted letters patent for a free grammar school[6] and licence to provide a curate or minister and allow baptisms, marriages and burials for the inhabitants of the village and Anglezarke, Hemshaws and Foulds in 1566. Before this time the inhabitants were forced to travel to the surrounding parishes.[7][8]

The Reverend Samuel Newton was ejected from the church on "Bartholemew Sunday" in 1662 and most probably the staunchly Puritan congregation followed him and many became Presbyterian.[9] This event led to the eventual founding of Rivington Unitarian Chapel.

The church remains primarily as rebuilt in 1666 with alterations and restoration in the late 19th century.[1] The present north wall is the original wall of the building.[3] Rivington was created a parish out of the ancient ecclesiastical parish of Bolton le Moors in 1856, and at their own cost, and by a privilege that only eleven churches in the country possessed, the parishioners were able to select their own minister.[3]

Building

Exterior

The church is built of irregularly coursed sandstone with large quoins, some measuring five feet, at the corners and a slate roof. It is a small plain building with three three-light windows on each side. The nave is 55 feet 6 inches in length by 27 feet 6 inches in width and the chancel, 13 feet 6 inches by 15 feet 6 inches. There is a 19th-century gabled porch between the centre and western windows on the south side and a modern vestry on north side. The west gable wall has an elliptical-headed doorway and there is an octagonal bell turret with square base and a conical roof with a weathervane. The roof is covered with green slates and finished with overhanging eaves. The three bay nave has square-headed windows of three square lights on the north side, and round headed on the south side. There is a doorway between the second and third windows from the east on each side and a door at the west end.[10] The chancel has three round-headed lights in each side and there is a five light east window.[1]

In 2014 an extension was added to the church's west end providing a reception and display area, toilet and kitchen.[11]

The earliest gravestone is marked 1616. The earliest memorial in the church is dated 1627. Stones near the entrance include the 'Anderton Stone' which depicts shack bolts from the Anderton coat of arms and a crucified figure with 'INRI' believed to originate from Anderton Hall chapel.[12] Above it is a carved with a Sator Square reading "SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS" which possibly predates the Christian era.[13]

Interior

The roof has four collar trusses with bracing to tie-beams and collars. There is a late medieval oak screen and a late sixteenth century octagonal, oak pulpit on a stem, with two linen-fold panels in each side.[1] The screen and pulpit are considered to predate the church building.[10][14] On the north wall there is a genealogical painting copied in 1835 from a sixteenth-century painting relating to the Pilkington family which was damaged by fire in 1834. There is an 18th-century brass chandelier with fluted body and two tiers of arms.[1] There are graves stones including one inscribed 'Richard Pilkyngton' beneath the wooden floor.[3]

Belltower

The belltower, a Grade II Listed building in the churchyard close to the church, is a small, square, single-storey building with a basement and outside steps built in sandstone with a stone slate roof. It was built to hold a large bell bought from All Saints' Church, Wigan in 1542.[15] The bell was sold by church commissioners around 1551.[16] The detached bellhouse, the only such structure in Lancashire, was used as a charnel house but is now used as a tool house by the sexton and grave digger.[17]

References

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Rivington Church, Images of England, retrieved 6 November 2010
  2. ↑ Rivington Parish Church, GenUKI, retrieved 6 November 2010
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Rivington Churches, rivington-lancashire.com, retrieved 6 November 2010
  4. 1 2 Rivington Church, Lancashire Online Parish Clerks, retrieved 2010-06-10
  5. ↑ Irvine 1904, pp. 29–30
  6. ↑ Kay 1966, p. 156
  7. ↑ Commissioners, Charity (1828). Report of the Commissioners, Charities, Volume 3. Bodleian Library, Oxford: Charity Commission. p. 198. Retrieved 5 October 2014.
  8. ↑ Kay 1966, p. 160
  9. ↑ Irvine 1904, p. 91
  10. 1 2 Farrer & Brownbill 1911, pp. 286–294
  11. ↑ Rivington Parish Church, Blackrod, Horwich and Rivington Mission Partnership, retrieved 28 September 2014
  12. ↑ Smith 1998, p. 57
  13. ↑ Rawlinson 1969, p. 42
  14. ↑ Lewis, Samuel (1848), "Rivington or Rovington", A Topographical Dictionary of England, British History Online, pp. 676–679, retrieved 11 May 2010
  15. ↑ "Bellhouse circa 10 metres west of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Rivington", Heritage Gateway website, 2014, retrieved 6 October 2014
  16. ↑ Irvine 1904, p. 60
  17. ↑ Rawlinson 1969, p. 38

Bibliography

  • Farrer, William; Brownbill, J, eds. (1911), "Rivington", A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 5, British History Online, retrieved 2010-06-04 
  • Irvine, William Fergusson (1904), A short history of the township of Rivington, Edinburgh: Ballantyne Press, retrieved 2010-06-21 
  • Rawlinson, John (1969), About Rivington, Nelson, ISBN 978-0-9500615-0-4 
  • Smith, M.D. (1998), Old Rivington and District, Wyre, ISBN 0-9526187-1-0 
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