St Paul's Church, Scotforth

St Paul's Church is in Scotforth, a suburb of Lancaster, Lancashire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Lancaster, the archdeaconry of Lancaster and Morecambe, and the diocese of Blackburn. The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner described it as a "strange building" and "an anachronism, almost beyond belief".HistorySt Paul's was designed by Edmund Sharpe, an architect who established a practice in Lancaster in 1835. In 1838 E. G. Paley joined him as a pupil. In 1845 he became a partner and Sharpe retired from the practice in 1851. He then pursued a career in railway engineering. In 1874, when he was aged 68, he returned to architecture and designed this church which was opened in 1876. Sharpe lived in a house within 300yd of the church. The foundation stone was laid on 11 August 1874. The church was almost finished by the end of 1875, and it was consecrated on 18 February 1876 by Rt Revd James Fraser, Bishop of Manchester. In 1890–91 the west end of the church was extended by three bays, and transepts were added by Paley, Austin and Paley, the successors in Sharpe's former practice. This provided 150 more seats, and cost £930. In 1932–33 Henry Paley (the practice then being titled Austin and Paley) replaced the chancel floor, altered the choir seats and carried out other minor work. Two parish histories have been written, the first by Wilfrid Wolfendale for the parish's centenary, and the second by Peter Gedge for the parish's 125th anniversary.