Church Of Our Lady Immaculate And Saint Cuthbert

CROOK AND WILLINGTON CHURCH HILL NZ 13 NE (East side) Crook 24/20 Church of Our Lady Immaculate and Saint Cuthbert GV II

Roman Catholic parish church. Foundation plaque dated 1853; by Edward Welby Pugin; tower completed 1897. Irregular courses of squared sandstone; upper stages of tower hammer-dressed; ashlar dressings. Roofs renewed in slate-coloured asbestos tiles. Aligned south-west/north-west. Aisled nave with ritual north porch and south-west tower; chancel with north Lady chapel and south vestry link to presbytery. Decorated style; tower Tudor Gothic. Steeply-gabled porch has double boarded door in moulded arch with elongated 2-centred head; steps up to 2-centred-arched west door, with foliage-decorated hinges, flanked by filleted shafts with vine-carved capitals under drip-mould with mitred head-stops; cusped niche above has statue of Our Lady. Decorated tracery in 2-light aisle windows, 4-light west and large 5-light east windows. Spherical-triangular clerestory windows have 3 cusped lights. Tall 3-stage tower has 2-light west window, cusped lancet at top of high first stage on east, steps up to boarded door on south; high plinth and clasping ashlar buttresses. Upper stages offset, with pinnacled clasping buttresses flanking clock under drip-mould, and tall traceried belfry openings; pinnacled parapet has corner blind-traceried battlements on flower-bracketed frieze with corner gargoyles. Steeply-pitched roofs of nave, chancel and Lady chapel have stone cross finials.

Interior; painted plaster above painted boarded dado; ashlar chancel and dressings. Painted scissor-truss roof and painted panelled keeled chancel roof. 5-bay arcades, the west bays filled with screens and the arches boxed in to form south porch and north children's room, have moulded 2-centred arches on quatrefoil columns with varied foliage capitals; high, shafted chancel arch with flower-stopped drip-mould. Other arches to chancel and doors either depressed 2-centred or elongated 2-centred. Chancel has angle-bracketed ashlar balcony on south. West screen and gallery have Gothic tracery with crested balustrade. High altar 1864 by J.F. Bentley now separated into 3 parts, the tabernacle in the Lady chapel, the altar under the chancel arch and the reredos in the original position, all of alabaster with enamel and gold inlay and painted panels, in Gothic style. East brass foundation plate dated 1853. Glass in east window by Hardman; other glass includes some by Atkinson Bros., Newcastle, commemorating 1862 arrival in the parish of the Sisters of Mercy.

Listing NGR: NZ1680135786