Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary was built in 1864 by Austin and Johnson. Between 1897 and 1902, the chancel and west end of the nave were extended, and a north aisle was added by W.S. Hicks. The church is constructed of squared stone with ashlar dressings, and has a Welsh slate roof with looped terracotta cresting on the nave. It comprises a nave with a four-bay north aisle, a south porch, a chancel, a north vestry/organ chamber, and a south-west bell turret.

The nave has a chamfered plinth and moulded string courses to the sills, with linking hoodmoulds. The south side has a porch with a double-chamfered arch and boarded double doors. Above the porch are three windows with two lancet lights and a cinquefoiled circle above each. The west end has two transomed three-light windows in a 14th-century style, with flanking and central buttresses. The north aisle has a lower-pitched roof and four-light windows with trefoiled ogee lights under square heads; a blocked arch on the west leads to an unfinished part of the building. The chancel has a moulded plinth, string and stepped buttresses. It has two- and three-light windows on the south side, and a five-light east window in a 14th-century style with a cusped panel above. The bell turret has a shouldered doorway on the east and small loop lights below a wooden bell stage with three slatted openings on each face, topped with a short pyramidal spire. Gables are coped and have finial crosses.

Inside, the church is plastered. A four-bay north arcade has double-chamfered arches on round piers. The nave has a king-post roof with intermediate arch-braced collars, the posts resting on collars only in alternate trusses. The north aisle roof has strutted king-post trusses with central bosses and embattled plate. The chancel and sanctuary arches spring from double corbels with leafy capitals. A green granite font has a spire cover. The east window, dated 1911 and signed by Atkinson Bros. of Newcastle, depicts Christ in Majesty with the Evangelists below, flanked by the Resurrection and Ascension. A north aisle window was added in 1950 by Evetts. The church was originally built as a chapel of ease to St Mary, Horton, and became a parish church in 1896.