Church Of St Paul

The Church of St Paul is a parish church dating from 1868 to 1873, with a later chancel and north aisle added in 1920. It was designed by T.C. Ebdy. The original construction uses rock-faced snecked limestone with rock-faced sandstone quoins and ashlar dressings, while the chancel and aisle are built of sandstone ashlar. The roofs are slate, initially Welsh slate and later Lakeland slate, both with stone gable copings.

The church features a chancel with a north vestry and a south organ chamber, a nave with a north aisle and a south transept, and a tower. The exterior displays stepped, coped angle buttresses projecting prominently. Windows from the original build have alternate-block jambs and steeply-sloping sills. The chancel has three eastern lancet windows with a roundel above, and Lombard friezes along the north and south elevations above paired lancet windows. The south transept has a tall, three-light window with geometric tracery, topped with a stone cross finial. A three-stage tower features a pointed archway over a double-panelled door with a low-relief cross, and paired tall belfry lancet windows. A stair turret is set to the left return of the tower. The clerestory has quatrefoils over the south aisle, and the west gable of the nave contains paired windows with cusped quatrefoil tracery and a roundel. The north aisle’s west gable features a triple-cusped window.

Inside, the tower porch has a shouldered arch leading to the stair turret. Five-bay arcades are present, the north with chamfered pointed arches on tall round piers, and the south with short round piers and alternately round and square capitals. The chancel arch and arcade ends rest on paired corbelled shafts. The roof is arch-braced with a kingpost and stone corbels. The church contains stained glass, including a high-quality west window by WN Taylor, and windows by Bacon Bros. A rood screen and carved wooden reredos with perpendicular tracery are also present, along with an octagonal stone font.