Salesbury - The Church

The Church

Initially there was no church in Salesbury, so devout landowners of the village often had private chapels. It is known that Salesbury Old Hall and Showley Hall are two of the places that housed chapels. These could be attended by tenants and servants, but for baptisms, marriages and burials people went to nearby churches in Blackburn and Ribchester. These were the Parish Church of St. Mary in Blackburn and St Wilfrid's Church, Ribchester.

As the population of Salesbury grew towards the end of the 18th Century as a result in a boom in weaving, Viscount Bulkeley and other landowners raised the money to build a Chapelry. St. Peter's Chaplery was built and consisted of a rectangular room with a bell, a chimney and a porch. It was consecrated on 8 September 1807 by the Lord Bishop of Chester. The Chapelry served its purpose for many years until 1848, when a report by the Rural Dean of Blackburn described the old church as 'having been originally very ill-built, and, in its present condition, inconvenient, uncouth, unchurchlike and ruinous.'. The building was propped up, and church life went on as usual.

In 1873 a new vicar Rev. Peter Hopwood Hart arrived and set up a committee to raise money for a new church. The old chapelry was removed and a church was re-built in the same position. The church was finally consecrated on 29 June 1887. It was known as the Jubilee Church as it was built in the year of the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. It was built in a 'late 14th-century Gothic' design by the architects Stones & Gradwell.

Today the church in one of the main features in Salesbury. It boasts stained glass windows, an organ and a regular choir. The church has a graveyard which surrounds the church and includes spaces for both gravestones and cremation plaques. Currently there is no vicar but the church is helped but the assistant curate The Reverend Andrew Malcolm. The church is also home to a monthly Mothers Union.