Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs and attached presbytery

Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs and Attached Presbytery

This Roman Catholic church was built in 1883 by architects William de Normanville and William Fox. The design incorporates the chancel from an earlier church by T J Willson. The building is executed in Gothic Revival style, constructed from local stone with ashlar dressings and Welsh slate roofs.

The church is oriented east to west and comprises an aisleless nave, chancel, a north chapel (the mortuary or Holy Souls chapel), and a west tower. A presbytery is attached to the northeast corner of the church, linked by a sacristy.

The chancel is two bays with a pair of traceried windows, largely obscured on the north side and considered to have been renewed in 1883; those on the south side lack hood moulds. The east end is steeply pitched with skew stones to the eaves and is topped by a cross finial. A richly curvilinear window with gabled hood mould is positioned prominently at the east end. The six-bay nave is marked externally by stepped buttresses, each bay containing a two-light window with hood mould and curvilinear tracery, more complex in the two eastern bays of the south side and the eastern bay on the north side. The south side displays neatly coursed stonework, while the north side has random coursing. The mortuary or Holy Souls chapel projects from the north side of the nave with windowless sides and a three-light curvilinear window in the gable end. A flat-roofed stone addition adjoins this to the east, featuring a shoulder-arched entrance to the church with an adjoining panel window of curvilinear tracery, and linking to later additions to the rear of the presbytery. The west end is formed by a three-stage buttressed tower with a crenelated parapet and corner finials. The lower stage contains the main church entrance with hood mould and fitted double boarded doors, with side walls having single lancets. The second stage has a large curvilinear tracery window with large plate tracery windows to each side wall. The upper stage features a louvered belfry of paired lancets to all sides.

All windows throughout retain original leaded glass.

The presbytery is set back from the church, joined by a single-storey linking block with pitched roof. It has steeply pitched roofs and two squat stone gable chimney stacks. All window openings are rectangular with flush lintels and relieving arches above, with chamfered stone sills. Ground floor windows are either single or paired narrow lights; first floor windows are larger single openings. Most window frames are original horned sashes, many with upper and lower margin lights. The main east elevation comprises three bays, the southern one set back with a chimney stack to the right gable. An entrance occupies the centre bay with a single window to the right and a first-floor window above. The north bay has paired narrow windows with a first-floor window above. The south bay has a single narrow window to both floors. The left return has paired ground-floor windows and a first-floor window. The rear wing has similar windows. The rear elevation features a two-storey extension, itself extended by a single-storey flat-roofed range with porch.

Interior of the church: The sanctuary, now used as a weekday chapel, has an open timber arch braced roof except in the east bay, which has a painted canopy of honour over the site of the former high altar. A small marble altar with clustered columns and a carving of Agnus Dei in the frontal stands here. The east window depicts Our Lady of Sorrows and may date from 1894. A carved aumbry and piscina are in the north wall, with a piscina in the south wall. A full-height opening in the north wall gives access to a short passage leading to the sacristy, entered through a shoulder-arched entrance with a heavy modern timber door. The sacristy has a coved plaster ceiling, simple cornice and a fireplace.

The sanctuary is now positioned in front of the chancel arch on a dais. The altar has been re-sited and is freestanding, constructed of Bere stone with enriched marble columns with foliate capitals and polished marble gemstones, featuring an inset rectangular panel depicting the Descent of Christ from the Cross, flanked by arched panels painted with vases of flowers. The original but truncated Gothic marble reredos is now sited in the chancel arch, comprising five rather than the original six of the Seven Sorrows of Mary set within cusped, cinquefoil ogee heads with crockets and finials. A fine and ornate alabaster tabernacle is set to the right with slender marble columns supporting a Gothic arch with angels and a floral frieze, on a new white marble plinth. In the tympanum over the reredos is a modern five-light stained glass window to St John Boste.

The aisleless nave has painted plaster walls with seating of simple open-backed pine pews with inverted Y-shaped ends, which may date from the original 1871 church. An open timber arch braced roof springs from corbelled wall posts, with scissor trusses at the apices. Windows, inset within stone arched surrounds, have tinted glass within rectangular and diamond quarries. A single stained glass window in the south wall depicts the women at the tomb and Noli me Tangere. The Holy Souls Chapel projects from the north wall and features stone Gothic arcading carried on slender marble columns with floral bosses to the spandrels. The arcade contains marble panels recording monthly the names of the dead of the parish and elsewhere. Two marble panels with polished marble gemstone-set crosses are set into its north wall either side of the window: that to the left commemorates John Leadbitter Smith of Flass Hall, benefactor of local missions, and that to the right Fr Fortin, first mission priest. A timber gallery at the west end has a trefoil-headed arcaded gallery front supported on a pair of ornate cast-iron columns, accessed by a timber winder stair with turned balusters. The gallery houses the organ and steps give access to the second stage of the tower, which has half-height panelling. The underside of the gallery is enclosed with etched glass panels to create a narthex, within which the main west door entrance has double-boarded doors.

The interior of the presbytery was not inspected.

The two-storey rear extension and flat-roofed single-storey extension with porch to the presbytery are not of special architectural or historic interest.