Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a parish church built in 1822 by John Stokoe in consultation with the rector, John Hodgson. It is constructed from coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings and features a graduated Westmorland slate roof with stone gable coping on both the chancel and nave parapets. The church is designed in an Early English style and includes a west tower, nave, north and south transepts, a chancel, and a narrower sanctuary.

The tower consists of three stages and has a north door, a traceried two-light west window, a clock beneath two-light round-headed belfry openings, and pinnacled battlements. The nave has three bays, while the transepts and chancel each have two bays. The windows throughout the church are primarily two-light, with some being blind. The north and south doors in the transepts are flanked by mullioned-and-transomed two-light windows featuring cusped arches on the transoms. Blind roundels are present in the gable peaks. An inscription in the south transept gable commemorates the foundation of the first church on the site and its rebuilding in 1822.

Inside, the church features plaster with ashlar dressings. The chancel arch is double-chamfered and moulded, resting on half-octagonal pilasters. The chancel has a square-panelled plastered ceiling that is flat. There are four sedilia on the north side, an older double piscina, and two sedilia on the south. The reredos is Gothic-arcaded and includes painted panels from 1922. An octagonal font is located in the south transept, while a late 19th-century Gothic-style font is found at the west end. The church also contains memorials to members of the Brandling and Russell families, as well as to Richard Dawes, crafted in classical style by Jopling of Gateshead. Stained glass in the north transept was made by Ballantine.