Church Of St Mary And Attached Railings

SUNDERLAND

NZ3957SE BRIDGE STREET 920-1/18/20 (West side) 08/05/50 Church of St Mary and attached railings (Formerly Listed as: BRIDGE STREET (West side) Roman Catholic Church of St Mary)

GV II

Roman Catholic parish church. 1830-35. By I Bonomi. 1850 chapels, c1980 alteration to ritual S when attached presbytery demolished. Sandstone ashlar W front, remainder limestone rubble with ashlar dressings and some C20 ashlar; Welsh slate roof; cast-iron railings. W is ritual E. Sanctuary; N and S chapels; 3-bay nave. C13 style. Gabled W front to street has stepped buttresses with tall pinnacles flanking tall 3-light window with cinquefoil in plate tracery; stepped triple arcade above, outer arches blind and central louvred, under crocketed gable. Flanking lancets below smaller lights, under plain sloped coping. 2-stage porches at each end, with pinnacled stepped and angled buttresses, have moulded door arches with nook shafts; bands above have blind quatrefoil tracery; top stage 2-light windows with quatrefoil tracery under Lombard frieze and top blind arcaded parapet. Gable has cross finial. S elevation has lancets. E front to Back Bridge Street has central trefoil below small lancet; lancets in outer bays; paired lancets in N and triple in S chapels. INTERIOR has W gallery on moulded cast-iron columns; inserted partition set back below. Chapels have paired double-chamfered arches on round column and attached half-columns, the N with shafts. High pointed-arched sanctuary, blind trefoil above and trefoil within, and flanking windows have nook shafts with clasping rings; hoodstring over pointed blind arches and windows. 4 confessional doors in N wall have shouldered arches with signs of the Passion carved in spandrels of chamfered surrounds under hoodstring. Panelled coved ceiling on brattished cornice and heraldic corbels. N chapel has Gothic-style reredos with high relief carved Annunciation, S chapel has E arcade. Reordered with altar brought forward; carved, painted Gothic reredos in situ. Glass in E windows signed and dated TC Dickinson, London, 1946; in N chapel vivid N window signed HM Barnett, Newcastle, commemorating Gilmore died 1867. Cast-iron railings attached to front and right return of ritual S porch: spears with trefoils on principles. The earliest Gothic revival church surviving in Sunderland. (Corfe T and Milburn G: Buildings and Beliefs: Sunderland: 1984-: 10).

Listing NGR: NZ3967857227