You are nearing the end of your tour. You may wish to look at the tower from the outside as you leave.
Standing 250 feet above sea level, the present tower and spire rise to 150 feet. The earliest known details of a tower and steeple at Prescot were stated in the will of John Fairfax, Rector of Prescot, 1375-1393, who left £10 to build a tower of stone at Prescot church. This tower replaced an earlier one which, in 1291, held bells and was old from antiquity and likely to fall down. In 1729 the present tower and spire were completely rebuilt in the Renaissance Style at a cost of £455, to a design by Henry Sephton, a leading mason and architect from Liverpool.
The square tower stands 75 feet high, and on each side the two light belfry windows are enclosed by pilasters and entablature in the Doric style, a clock face above each. Above this, the octagonal spire is divided up into four sections by prominent mouldings. The spire stands 75 feet and is topped by a gilded weathervane in the form of a lion, which is an emblem of King’s College, Cambridge.
The present clock was installed on 23 December 1806. There are 54 steps to reach the winding room and a further 16 to reach the clock itself.
In 1845 the church installed a brand new peal of eight bells in the tower. They were cast in the London foundry of Charles and George Mears and they were fitted into a hastily constructed and extended wooden bell frame that had contained the previous set of six bells. Regular ringing of these eight bells continued until the 1960s until time took its toll on the tower and steeple and the wooden bell fittings supplied in 1845. The ringing of bells was suspended and in 1994 the bells were removed and taken back to London to be re-tuned. A new metal bell frame and all new bell fittings were supplied and installed by the firm of Eayre & Smith from Derbyshire and the new bells were inaugurated by the Duke of Gloucester in December 1994.