A chapel was first built in Skelmersdale in 1776 as a chapel of ease to St Peter and St Paul, Ormskirk. It was enlarged in 1823 and again in 1850. In 1856 it became a parish church in its own right, and was dedicated to Saint Paul. Later in the 19th century the chapel was damaged by subsidence due to coal mining. The present church was built on different site nearby.[3] Its foundation stone was laid in July 1903, and the church was consecrated on 18 December 1906 by the Rt Revd Francis Chavasse, bishop of Liverpool.[4] It was designed by the Lancaster architects Austin and Paley, and provided seating for 575 people.[5] The plan was to add a tower on the north side of the chancel, but this was never built.[6]
Architecture
Exterior
The church is constructed in sandstonerubble with ashlar dressings, and has a red tiled roof.[2] Its architectural style is free Perpendicular.[6] The plan consists of a five-baynave with a clerestory, a west cantedbaptistry, north and south aisles, and a chancel, with the base of the projected tower to the north, and a vestry to the south. The clerestory windows have arched heads and contain rounded tracery. The windows along the sides of the aisles are flat-headed, and also contain rounded tracery. At the west end of the church buttresses flank the baptistry, above which is an arched four-light window. On the tower base is a pyramidal roof.[2]
^The Building, St Paul's, Skelmersdale, retrieved 26 March 2012
^Brandwood, Geoff; Austin, Tim; Hughes, John; Price, James (2012), The Architecture of Sharpe, Paley and Austin, Swindon: English Heritage, p. 245, ISBN 978-1-84802-049-8
^ abcPollard, Richard; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2006), Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West, The Buildings of England, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, p. 589, ISBN 0-300-10910-5
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