Preston, Lancashire
Francis Franklin, CC BY-SA 4.0
Grade I-listed, 1847-54, J.A. Hansom
St. Walburge’s was commissioned in 1847, at the time of the Roman Catholic revival in England, and was constructed over the course of nearly seven years in time for its opening ceremony in 1854. Considered to be J.A. Hansom’s ‘most personal building and his most alarmingly individual’, it is an unusual interpretation of French Gothic and incorporates several characteristically English features.
The significance of the church is registered in the fine quality of its design and the scale on which it was built. The tower and spire, rising to a height of 309 feet, is the principal landmark of Preston and one of the tallest structures of any sort anywhere in the city. The rose window is an amazing 22-feet wide, and retains all of its Victorian stained glass. There are, moreover, finely carved figures of saints supported by hammerbeams, which together form the superstructure of an 84-foot roof.
Designed for a large and expanding Roman Catholic population, with space to accommodate more than 1,000 worshippers on a daily basis, it now has one Mass a week for a congregation of about 120. St Walburge’s therefore highlights the problems for major church buildings, where resources are stretched and congregations dwindling. The diocese proposes to close this church, and amalgamate the parish with an adjoining one, leaving this exceptional building with no agreed plans for its future.
Status Update / March 2026
After a period of protracted decline, on 4 April 2014, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Lancaster announced in a pastoral letter that the building would be rededicated as a shrine church. A grant was secured from the Churches Conservation Trust to restore the building and an effort was made to bring it back into regular use. The Mass is now celebrated daily and the Sacraments are offered in the traditional Roman Rite according to the charter of the Institute of Christ the King.
Mdbeckwith, CC BY 3.0