VILLAGERS were reduced to tears 40 years ago this week when the centrepiece of their community went up in smoke.

Within hours of Astleyites celebrating walking day on June 18, 1961, 200-year-old St Stephen's church -- which stood opposite the Vicarage and the entrance to Astley Hospital -- was ravaged by fire.

Fifty firemen from Atherton, Hindley, Leigh, Farnworth, Agecroft and Eccles fought in vain to stop the blaze, which was deliberately started shortly before 11pm.

Flames rose 50 feet above the towering church on the edge of the Bullcroft, where crowds assembled to watch the death throes of the ancient building. They had flocked to The Straits, attracted by the glow which had lit-up the midsummer sky, and could do little but stare as the village centrepiece was reduced to a shell.

People gathered in groups, wondering what could have caused the destruction of the fine old building which dated from 1760, having been rebuilt on the site of Adam Mort's original chapel, which dated from 1631.

Little did they know, as they watched the church perish, its demise had been brought about by a local -- in fact the person who had raised the alarm by knocking on the Vicarage door to inform the vicar, the Rev William King, that his house of worship was on fire.

By the early hours, the walls were all that was left, standing forlorn amidst a trampled graveyard.

Early estimates were that the damage would cost £100,00 to repair. Inside, the building resembled a wartime bombing scene. The wooden pews had gone up in smoke, the organ -- where the fire had started -- had disintegrated, the altar and war memorials were gone and the font, where generations of villagers had been baptised, stood cracked and blackened.

St Stephen's had barely stopped smouldering when the arsonist was at work again, and Tyldesley parish was soon to consider itself lucky not to have suffered a similar loss.

Vicar of St George's, the Rev Oliver St John, was shocked to find the altar scorched and burned when he went in to the Tyldesley church on the morning of June 29, 1961, and it later emerged the same youth -- a millworker -- had also been responsible for that fire.

Police investigations revealed he had also set fire to a garage at a house in Henfold Road, Tyldesley, destroying the car inside, and also fired farmer Jack Hurst's haystack at Chaddock Lane, Boothstown, on the same night -- a week before destroying St Stephen's.

Local historian Dr John Lunn described the loss of St Stephen's as "the shabbiest act of destruction this ancient township has ever seen. This act shamed the entire range of society, who saw a defenceless building -- the treasure house of a parish, the shrine of a great ministration, the silent and eloquent tribute to a faith of the past -- done to death as its patronal saint had been."

A decision was made to demolish the old building and a campaign started to build a new church. In the meantime, services were held in St Stephen's junior school 100 yards from the church in Church Road.

The school, which dated from 1841, was knocked down in 1967 and the present building opened on land at The Ley, where the new St Stephen's Church was built alongside it, and consecrated in October 1968.

The old St Stephen's church yard remains as a reminder of old Astley, a small oasis at the heart of the village conservation area -- but things weren't quite so peaceful there 40 years ago.

A SERVICE will be held at St Stephen's Church at 7.30pm on Wednesday, June 27, to celebrate the completion of the renovation of Astley's Dam House and woodlands.

And on August 11, Astley's famous garden parties return. Children's events, stalls, games and a tug o'war are planned in the Dam House grounds. For stall reservations and more details about the service and party call, 01942 876417.