St Bartholomew

Over the last almost three weeks I have become familiar with the “landmarks” on the way to and from the hospital.

This Roman Catholic church, St Bartholomew’s, is one of them, and late afternoon I walked down and had a closer look. It sits on a very tight bend, so when I am heading home I am driving straight towards it - and have to remember to turn tight to the right in front of the gateway. . When a service is taking place in the evening the front is floodlit, and it looks dramatic.

A bit of history. The church was commissioned and paid for by local stagecoach proprietor Bartholomew Bretherton, who lived at Rainhill House (now Hall) adjacent. The design style is apparently based on San Bartolomeo all’Issola in Rome (Bretherton had a thing about his name it seems). . As a stagecoach man Bretherton wanted the church to face and be very visible from the highway (had he realised that the locomotive trials just up the road were going to put paid to his business ?). So the location right on a tight bend is very deliberate. The local red sandstone came from a quarry he owned. Its been described as the finest RC church in south Lancashire, and it’s certainly a very striking building.,