The history of St Walburge’s

The latest addition to the Preston History Library is Tom Smith’s ‘St Walburge’s: the Story of the Church’, published in the 1990s to contribute to urgently needed funds when it was discovered the church’s hammer-beam roof was infested with dry rot.

Despite its short length, the publication contains a wealth of information about both the church and the medieval hospital on the site:

‘The earliest known fact is that a hospital was erected there in 1293 and dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen, the patron saint of those afflicted by leprosy or skin diseases. These were apparently common in Northern Lancashire in medieval times. The hospital was near the Franciscan friary founded in 1221 in the vicinity of Ladywell Street.’

Smith adds:

‘The area around the hospital consequently became known as “Magdalen’s Lands” and in Preston, as elsewhere, its contracted pronunciation became “Maudlin Lands” or “Maudland”. The marsh land or moss surrounding the hospital was “Spittal Moss”. Priory Street and Abbey Street have their monastic associations whilst Croft Street is reputed to have led to a small farm belonging to the hospital.’

The Reformation saw the hospital transferred into the hands of the Fleetwood family of Penwortham, which much later provided the name for the nearby Fleetwood Street.

The Jesuits acquired the land on which the church was built in 1847, but unfortunately did not obtain the freehold, which delayed the consecration of the church for nearly a hundred years. It was not until 1933 that the owners finally agreed to sell the freehold, and three years later the church was finally consecrated.

Unusually, the schools were built before the church, with money donated by William Talbot, who gave his name to them and to the future Talbot Library housed there.

Until the church was built, mass was said in a temporary chapel named St Joseph’s. Tom Smith writes:

‘It is strange that the chapel should be dedicated to St. Joseph and the name not be retained for the new church. The choice was apparently due to a miraculous cure, brought about by St. Walburge’s Oil, to the knee of Alice Holderness, the housemaid at St. Wilfrid’s presbytery. She fell and broke her knee cap and when it failed to mend and medical opinion had declared it incurable, the priests offered to apply St. Walburge’s Oil to it.

‘The story goes “that immediately it was applied, the bones snapped together and she was perfectly cured, having no longer the slightest weakness in the broken limb”. The priests at St. Wilfrid’s had no doubt about the miraculous nature of the cure and decided that their new daughter church should be named in honour of St. Walburge.’

The architect chosen was Joseph Hansom:

‘Perhaps most widely known for the cab which bears his name, he also designed fifty churches, ten convents and seven monasteries amongst many other works which included the Talbot schools. St.Walburge’s can be regarded as one of his most striking successes and he lived nearby in Canal Cottage on Tulketh Brow whilst the church was being built.’

The spire was a later addition, completed in 1866, and the weather vane, the famous Maudland Cock, was added a year later, surviving atop the spire until 1931.

It’s the minor details that make these short histories so interesting and revealing, as in:

‘During the Second World War, 1939-45, most parks and churches had their iron railings taken away to make weapons. In 1942 those of St Walburge’s were also removed but, unaccountably, simply left to rust on a nearby waste ground. It was another nine years before they were replaced and the new ones painted by voluntary parish labour.’

I’ve made the text searchable, so if you’re looking for something specific, just pop it in the search box.

Should the copyright holder object, I’ll take it down.

It can be read and downloaded on a desktop computer or a laptop. It can be downloaded but not viewed on a tablet or a mobile.