Description

LANCASTER

SD4761NE DALTON SQUARE
1685-1/7/98 (North side)
16/05/89 No.2
and Palatine Hall

GV II

Roman Catholic church with attached presbytery to the left,
later public hall, music hall, cinema, and now council
offices. 1798-1799, altered 1859 and extensively remodelled
internally in 1983. Probably by Robert Roper. Sandstone
ashlar, with sides and rear of coursed dressed sandstone with
a plinth, quoins and dressings of ashlar. The roofs are of
slightly different pitches, with Welsh slate to the left on
No.2 and Cumbrian slate on Palatine Hall, and there is a large
chimney stack above the party wall between the premises. The
roof of Palatine Hall is hipped and has a square louvred
ventilator on the ridge. No.2 has a double-depth plan, while
what was the church has a single-span roof and runs back from
the square.
3 storeys above a cellar, and 6 bays with an eaves cornice
which continues around and along Friar Street. Originally the
facade was formed by an almost matching pair of 3-bay
elevations with central doorways (though the bays of the
church are slightly wider, and most if not all of its openings
were blind). All the openings now have plain reveals. The
doorway of No.2 has a cornice on consoles, while Palatine Hall
has a wide single-storey flat-roofed porch of 1859 with
clasping Tuscan pilasters, a frieze inscribed 'PALATINE HALL'
and a moulded cornice. The panelled doors of both parts are
recent.
The side elevation to Friar Street has, in the first bay which
is marked off by plain raised quoins, a large Venetian window
with a plain surround and keystone, which originally lit the
sanctuary of the church. To the right are 3 taller, similarly
detailed round-headed windows linked by a band at impost
level; above and to the right of each of these is a small oval
window inserted in 1983 to light the top floor of the office.
On the far right is a late C19 doorway with ovolo-moulded
jambs between rusticated strip pilasters.
INTERIOR: the conversion in 1983 involved a cleverly contrived
split-level scheme to take advantage of the fall of the site
to the north of the Square. This retained all, and exposed 6,
of the trusses of the roof. Each truss has 5 queen posts,
shaped as columns with moulded bases and caps. These carry
brackets supporting moulded collars and longitudinal beams.
HISTORY: the church was built as the first publicly visible
Roman Catholic church in the town, after the Catholic Relief
Act of 1778, and was in use until 1859, when it was superseded
by St Peter's Church, St Peter's Road, now the Cathedral (qv).
After 1859 the building became a public hall, a music hall
and, lastly, a cinema.

Listing NGR: SD4788061680

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q31678043

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)