Memory Lane
St Saviour's Chrurch, Stydd
This week's Memory Lane picture is of St Saviour's Chrurch, Stydd Lane, Ribchester.
The church dates from the late 12th century and is one of the oldest surviving churches in Lancashire. It was once part of a hospital run by the Knights Hospitallers of the Order of St John. A hospital in those days was somewhat different to our modern idea of a hospital, combining the functions of hospital, hotel and tavern - a place where travelers could seek some rest and respite from their journey. Its presence here suggests that the Roman roads which pass through Ribchester were still in use in medieval times.
The church is built on the site of much older buildings, possibly Roman in origin. In 1916 an excavation by staff and pupils from Stonyhurst College unearthed the foundations of a building which they believed to be a Mithraeum - a temple to the Roman cult of Mithras - or possibly an early Christian church dating from the Roman period.
In the woods to the north of the church there is a "holy" spring. My father-in-law remembers playing here as a child in the 1950s and says that the spring used to be filled with coins. He has gone back recently to try to find it but says it is now overgrown and very hard to find.
Until recently the church was in a poor state. The picture here, dating from 1918 shows it had become quite dilapidated. Fortunately, it has now been restored.
Colin Hinkley, Ribchester Local History Society
This article was first published in the Memory Lane column of the Longridge News and is reproduced here with permission.