Roman Catholic Church of St Cuthbert

Roman Catholic Church of St Cuthbert

This is a Roman Catholic church built in 1840 by architect John Dobson, altered in 1904 by J Goulding. It is designed in the Gothic Revival style and constructed from local, roughly coursed rubble sandstone with Welsh slate roofs.

The church is oriented north to south (liturgical directions), with a deep aisled chancel, a four-bay aisled nave, and an unaisled west end containing a central porch. It is situated on the south side of the main road through Cowpen, with the west end facing the road.

The chancel is deep and rectangular with its north and south sides obscured by flanking aisles. The east end features a stepped triple lancet window with continuous hoodmould and bar stops, surmounted by a cross finial. The gables of the flanking aisles are blind; the right gable has an inserted pointed-arched window. The north aisle of the nave has eaves corbels, chamfered buttresses, and trefoil-headed lancets (paired in the west bay) with a sill band. The west bays of the nave each have a large plate tracery window. The west end has a central porch flanked by stepped and gabled buttresses with a cusped cross finial above a quatrefoil panel. The entrance is a pointed arch of two orders with hoodmould, foliate capitals and stops, containing a double-boarded door. Above the porch is a triple lancet window with trefoil heads and a gabled belfry. The buttressed gables of the aisles are set back and both have large plate tracery windows (the south aisle window is larger) with cross finials in differing styles.

Internally, the chancel walls are exposed roughly-coursed rubble re-pointed with black mortar. The east window is a stepped lancet with stained glass signed 'Newcastle 1860', thought to be by Atkinson Brothers. The side walls have pointed arched doorways to the north and south chapels. The north wall contains a crudely carved recess and the south wall a piscine and triple-arched sedilia. Each side has a central clerestory window of two pointed lights within a square-headed window with timber lintel. The chancel roof is continuous with the nave but there is a boarded timber chancel arch springing from a stone corbel in the form of a praying angel. The chancel chapels have flat, boarded ceilings and a single pointed-arch window each. The Lady Chapel (south) features a grotto surrounding a statue of the Virgin on the east wall above a modern altar. The north chapel, used as a sacristy, retains a statue of the Sacred Heart.

The wooden altar rail, dating to around 1750, has four openwork panels alternating with narrow panels carved with angels or pointed arches beneath a moulded rail. The openwork panels depict the first and third Horsemen of the Apocalypse bearing a bow and pair of scales respectively, a pair of tablets with scroll and quill (representing the Ten Commandments), and a flying angel. The pulpit is situated at the north end of the altar rail; its stair balustrade has two panels each decorated with a large roundel. One roundel displays Marian symbols including the crowned entwined initials MRA (Maria Regina Angelorum) and the other a fluted columnar plinth bearing a sacrificial ram in flames. The ornate pulpit is square, standing on a short fluted column with back and tester. The two long sides have late-medieval 16th-century figurative pieces comprising a mitred abbot clothing a novice in monastic habit with three monks, and Christ displaying his wounds flanked by angels. The back has two more roundels with 17th-century griffons and a cherub. The two exposed corners have standing figures of a nun and a monk.

The four-bay aisled nave has painted plaster walls, each bay formed by three cast-iron columns with circa 1300 detailing supporting a continuous timber-faced iron girder with roll-moulded lower edge. The aisles are lit by paired pointed-arch windows with hoodmoulds and bar stops; the nave has clerestory windows similar to those in the chancel. The roof has ornate collar trusses with 17th-century detailing, chamfered triple purlins and a roof ridge. A wooden west gallery occupies the unaisled bay, with a front of ten panels and frieze below. Beneath this is a tracery screen of seven bays with a wide ogee-headed entrance; the tracery details and decorative work are in early 14th-century style but the piece is considered to be 19th-century in origin and re-used. The gallery is reached by a straight-leg stair with winder and ornate newel posts and balusters. A pair of wall-mounted brasses commemorate Marlow and Christina Sidney as 'founders of this church' and Fr Wilfred Burchall; they are considered to be by Hardman of Birmingham. In the west porch is a tessellated floor incorporating the IHS symbol and a 13th-century-style piscina-like stoup, possibly a Dobson piece re-used.

The attached presbytery is not listed as being of special architectural or historic interest.