Church Of Our Blessed Lady Immaculate

The Church of Our Blessed Lady Immaculate is a Roman Catholic parish church dating from 1854-7, designed by A. Dunn, with a spire added in 1872. It is constructed of coursed squared sandstone with an ashlar plinth, quoins, and dressings, and has a Welsh slate roof with stone gable copings. The church is aligned north-south and comprises an aisled nave with a ritual south-west porch and a south-east tower in the south aisle, a chancel with a north link to a presbytery attached to the north-east. The architectural style is Early English.

The west front features double boarded doors set within a shafted cusped arch and a moulded 2-centred-arched surround, above which are three tall lancet windows and a trefoiled roundel in the gable peak. A south-west door is set within a 2-centred, chamfered arch under a gable with a statue in a niche. Lancet windows are paired in the aisles and tall on each of the three sides of the east apse, and paired in the south wall of the lower chancel. There are five cinquefoil clerestory lights. The steeply-pitched roofs terminate in cross finials.

The three-stage tower has triple south lancets and a plate-tracery 2-light east window in the first stage, with relieving arches above. A string below the second stage features a statue in a niche under a clock on the south and tall, slender, paired lancets on the east. The set-back third stage has paired bell openings under cinquefoils in panels with foliage-carved cornices. A parapet with corner and centre gargoyles sits on a string course, above which is a pyramidal slate roof with large lucarnes and a wrought iron cross finial. A four-stage octagonal north-east stair-turret has a small door with a shouldered arch and a window with shouldered heads. The top stage, on a string with gargoyles, has lancets under a gabled drip-string on gargoyle stops. A tall stone spire rises above, with small lucarnes and a cross finial. Gabled buttresses are present to the aisles, angle buttresses to the tower and tall coped west buttresses.

The interior features painted plaster over a boarded dado and painted ashlar dressings. A panelled chancel is included. The nave roof is an arch-braced scissor-truss construction with side struts on moulded corbels. The chancel roof comprises painted panels with medallions. Four-bay north and five-bay south arcades have high 2-centred chamfered arches to a porch, chapel, and continuation of the north arcade under a west organ gallery, supported on wood brackets. The east nave wall is covered in painted canvas, featuring a Gothic-lettered border to the chancel arch, and a dim pictorial panel. A Gothic-style wood reredos, a late 19th/early 20th century traceried altar, communion rail, and pulpit are also present. Chamfered square pew ends are distinguished by oval enamel number plaques. The porch contains a wall stoup under a cusped arch, and a painted cast-iron Gothic-style pillar stoup.