Church Of St Mary

The Church of St. Mary is a parish church built in 1872 by architects Austin and Johnson. It features squared, rock-faced stone in narrow courses with ashlar dressings and has Welsh slate roofs. The church is designed in Early English and Geometrical styles and includes an aisled nave with a south aisle that continues across the west bay of the chancel. The chancel has an organ chamber and vestry on the north side, while a tall three-stage tower with a spire is located at the angle between the vestry and the north aisle.

The tower has a square-plan lower stage with a pointed north door, small broaches at the base of the octagonal second stage, and an octagonal belfry made of ashlar with trefoil-headed bell openings under linked hoodmoulds. It is topped with a parapet featuring angle pinnacles and a squat spire. The nave is tall and has a three-bay design, with a pointed three-light window in the diagonally-buttressed west end, a moulded south doorway in the west bay inside the aisle, and small paired lancets in the clerestory. The nave has a steep roof with coped gables.

The south aisle is buttressed and has a four-bay design, featuring a pointed doorway at the west and depressed-pointed three-light windows under hoodmoulds, along with a pent roof. The north aisle mirrors this with a similar three-bay design. The chancel is lower with a two-bay layout, including a sill string, two-light windows on the north and south, and a three-light window in the diagonally-buttressed east end, all under a steep roof with a coped gable. The organ chamber and vestry are gable-fronted with a two-bay design, similar windows, and a steep roof.

Inside, the church has a three-bay nave arcade with hollow-chamfered, pointed arches on octagonal piers. The chancel arch is also a similar two-order design on foliage corbels, with similar arches leading to the organ chamber and Lady Chapel. The chancel features a trefoil-headed piscina and an encaustic-tiled sanctuary floor. The nave has an arch-braced king-post roof, while the chancel boasts a wood barrel-vaulted roof. The organ, dating from around 1874 and made by Harrison, is noted to be the earliest still in existence from their Durham works.