St Andrew's Church, Ashton-on-Ribble

St Andrew’s Church stands on Blackpool Road in Ashton-on-Ribble, a suburb of Preston in Lancashire. Built in 1836, it is an active Anglican parish church designed in Early English style with a Romanesque tower. The church seats around three hundred people when first opened and later gained a north aisle and vestry. Its sandstone walls and slate roofs give it a solid, traditional appearance. The tower rises in three stages with buttresses and a short broach spire. Inside, cylindrical piers of polished pink granite support the arcade. Edmund Robert Harris, a major local benefactor, is buried in a triple coffin beneath the church. The architect Ewan Christian enlarged the building in the 1870s, adding the aisle and altering the windows. The east window’s stained glass was made by Hardman, and the three-manual organ dates from 1902. War graves in the churchyard mark a Royal Air Force officer from the First World War and two officers from the Second World War. Visitors find a quiet churchyard with mature trees and well-kept graves. Inside, the polished granite piers catch the light, and the organ stands at the west end. The sedilia in the chancel and the family monuments add to the interior’s character. The tower’s lancet windows and louvred bell openings can be seen from outside. The church remains part of the Conservative Evangelical tradition within the Church of England.