St Leonard's Church, Downham

St Leonard’s Church stands in the quiet village of Downham, Lancashire, on a gentle slope above the Ribble valley. Its 15th-century west tower rises above the rebuilt nave and chancel, completed in 1909–10 to designs by Mervyn Macartney. The church is built of local sandstone under a slate roof, with a continuous nave and chancel, a south aisle and chapel, a north organ chamber and a south porch. The tower has diagonal buttresses, a west door with a moulded surround, and an embattled parapet with corner pinnacles and gargoyles. Above the west door is a three-light Perpendicular window with a Tudor arch, and the east window has five lights in the same style. The interior is calm and spacious, with a three-bay pointed arcade between nave and aisle. The chancel arch is chamfered, and both nave and chancel have simple barrel roofs. The octagonal sandstone font carries carved shields, one bearing the Legs of Man. A Baroque brass chandelier hangs above the nave, and the east window’s stained glass was given by Ralph and Richard Assheton in 1869. Shrigley and Hunt later added a window to Saint Leonard and restored the east window. The Assheton monuments include a work by Richard Westmacott to Frances Arabella Assheton, who died in 1835. Outside, the churchyard contains an octagonal sundial dated 1808, with a brass plate and gnomon on a moulded base. The church owns a two-manual Forster and Andrews organ moved here in 1909, and a ring of five bells, two dating from about 1480 and the others cast in 1881 and 1948. The building is Grade II* listed, recognised for its unostentatious design and generous interior space.