The Church is basically rectangular in plan with a vestry (c. 1900) at the north east corner and a small square tower at the west end of the centre aisle. There are three aisles; the centre aisle forms the nave and chancel. The aisles are independently roofed and gabled, partly covered by stone slabs and partly covered by modern blue slates.
The oldest part of the building is the western half of the north wall. It is mainly constructed of irregular yellow and red sandstone blocks intermixed; over its length, these are supported on a course of large rectangular blocks. Below the roof are three regular stone courses showing that the roof has been raised at some stage. The wall has two buttresses.
The north doorway has a pointed Gothic arch and some chamfered jambs on which eight symbols are carved – three four leaved flowers (or crosses), a rose, a fish, a cross and the letter M (twice). This doorway is thought to date from c. 1400. East of the doorway is an early fourteenth century window having two pointed trefoil lights with a rounded trefoil above. This is the earliest feature of the building. The doorway, the window and the large rectangular base stones suggest that this part of the wall may be fourteenth century.
A second window in the north wall is two lights and square headed and considered to be fifteenth century and there is a third window, now blocked off, in the vestry.
At the east end of the north aisle is a three light window with four low-centred arched head and external hood mould built into masonry similar to that of the north wall.
The whole of the west and south walls and the east wall of the south and centre aisles was rebuilt or refaced in the Georgian style in the mid-18th Century (c.1748), when the present tower was also erected. These walls consist of squared smooth faced grey gritstone with sandstone dressings. There are semi-circular headed windows and doors having classical features int he south wall, which has an embattled parapet from an earlier wall.
In the west wall, the south aisle has a segmented headed window, the north aisle has a new four light square headed Gothic window built into the 18th Century wall.
A short square tower is built against the west wall. This has a rounded headed window and is surmounted by an octagonal lantern, with an open arch on each face. Above these is a small dome and a fish weather vane. The south wall of the tower has a disused clock face.
The east window of the chancel and nave is a modern pointed one, of four lights, having perpendicular tracery. The south aisle has a round headed two light window similar to that in the south wall.
The interior of the church reveals three aisles of almost equal width. The centre aisle forms the nave and chancel, the latter being defined by arcading and modern oak screening. The aisles are divided by arcades of pointed Gothic arches in the Perpendicular style. Each has five Gothic arches having two chamfered orders and octagonal columns with moulded capitals and bases. The north arcade has three different designs of capital. In the south arcade each capital has the same design. The south arcade stonework is coarse compared to the north one.
The stone arches carry a number of mason’s marks scratched or chiselled onto the surface of the stone.
On the north aisle arcading are remnants of decorative painting on the first three arches from the west, the first and third have red paint, but also black and white in a chevron pattern. The belfry houses a single bell installed in 1946. The previous bell, mounted nearby on the floor, carries a date 1696 and was in use for 350 years. There is no founders mark.
The Patron saint of the church, St. Anne, is shown in the round headed window in the tower.
The stained glass windows are comparatively modern, having been installed during the past hundred years.
There is some positive evidence for repair, renovation and refurbishment. An increase in height of the north wall may have occurred when the church was re-roofed in 1639, a date together with in initials E.S. are shown on one of the principals of the north aisle (which have ovolo-moulding).
Box Pews were installed in the early eighteenth century. These remained in place until 1899. The panelling round the walls of the present church was taken from the box pews and some, seen against the south wall, carry the initials and dates (from 1713- 1725).
A major restoration took place in 1899-1900 when the interior was stripped of many coats of whitewash and plaster and the stonework revealed; the east window of the nave and the reredos were replaced, stonework in the south arcade and over the windows in the south wall was renewed. The old pews were removed and new seating installed, the chancel redefined and the choir stalls were added and the vestry was rebuilt. The roof was raised and renovated, with new trusses assembled above the nave and the south aisle and the dormer windows were inserted. The oak screening was added later.
When the vestry was enlarged, fragments of an earlier church were discovered including two portions of shafts with scalloped capitals, indicating the existence of a building here in the 12th Century, also some pieces of fourteenth century tracery and a red sandstone slab carrying a floriated cross. All the fragments were built into the vestry wall.
The development of the plan of the building is not clear from the evidence of the building. The nature of its walling suggests that the western half of the north aisle may represent the nave of a fourteenth-century building, This may have been extended eastwards in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century and an aisle added on its southerly side (when the north arcade was built). Some time later the present south aisle including the south arcade was built, the newly formed centre aisle becoming the nave. The inferior quality of the south arcade suggests it was built later than the north arcade. However as wall painting is limited to the western half of the church and as the capitals in the western half of the north arcade are identical, there may have been a shorter two aisle church at some period.
Reference: Victoria County History of Lancashire, vol. Vii (1911)
Peter Sheppard