Roman Catholic Church of St Leonard with attached presbytery and stone walls

Roman Catholic Church of St Leonard with attached presbytery and stone walls, built 1872-3 to designs of George Goldie of Goldie & Child. The building is constructed in Early English Gothic style.

The church and attached presbytery are built of rock-faced stone with darker coloured stone dressings and slate roofs. The church is set within a large garden and burial ground facing towards the main road.

The church plan comprises an un-aisled nave with apsidal sanctuary, a south-west porch and polygonal bell tower. A projecting range to the north side of the nave houses a sacristy with a gallery and organ loft above. The presbytery is attached to the sacristy at the east side by a linking range.

All windows and door openings have pointed arches. A moulded sill band and chamfered plinth run to all but the north elevation. Stone cross finials crown the sanctuary, porch, sacristy range and west end.

The apsidal sanctuary has a semi-pyramidal roof. Each of its five sides is marked by alternate quoins with a single lancet to each face. A foundation stone dated 1872 is set low down in the sanctuary wall. A buttress marks the south face where the sanctuary meets the nave. The south side of the nave has three paired lancets in plate tracery openings with plain hoodmoulds. A projecting, gabled and buttressed porch with a plain pointed archway is fitted with double-boarded doors with strapwork hinges and an impost band at the south-west corner. The attached two-stage polygonal bell tower rises above and occupies the south-west corner, with a louvered belfry stage surmounted by a tall polygonal slate-clad turret.

The north wall of the nave has three plate tracery windows with hoodmoulds. At the east end is a gabled, two-storey projecting sacristy range with attached lean-to stair turret, both with prominent quoins. The sacristy has a pair of lancets to the first floor and a square-headed window to the ground floor. The buttressed west end has a large four-light window with quatrefoils and an octofoil above.

The presbytery has two storeys and two bays under a pyramidal roof, with a third bay projecting at 45 degrees to the south-east under a separate pyramidal roof. The south elevation has a gabled wooden porch with a decorative datestone of AD 1872. Ground floor windows are set within lancet openings with solid tympana; the corner window has an inset quatrefoil. First floor windows are square-headed with ashlar lintels and surrounds, with original horned timber sashes except for one replaced in uPVC. The north elevation is plainer with an inserted canted bay window to the ground floor and a large six-light window to the right.

Interior of the church: the space is single with plastered and painted walls and a projecting band throughout at sill level. Windows are set within deep splays. The semi-dome of the sanctuary has a rib vaulted ceiling. The five lancets of the apse contain stained glass representing St Agnes, St John, the Risen Christ, St Peter and St Leonard. The finely carved but reduced high altar is of Bath stone with a carved frontal of floriated ornament and central cross, and polished red marble columns at the corners. A simple Gothic piscina lies to the right of the high altar. The inserted forward altar uses the original font as a base, of red and yellow sandstone with a clustered columned pedestal. The stone communion rail has square chamfered panels of pierced quatrefoils with a solid marble top, surviving in part to the left and right of the sanctuary entrance. Two square panels have been re-used in the lectern. The wide chancel arch is supported on corbels bearing plain shields. Above is painted text reading 'Glory be to God on high and on earth peace to men of goodwill', surmounted by a painted representation of the Trinity. The four-bay nave has a braced collar rafter roof with braces pierced with trefoils. A pair of shoulder-arched doors on the south side lead to the sacristy and to a winder stair serving the first floor gallery and organ loft. The latter has a large stone pointed arch opening with a stone projecting gallery supported on corbels and a stone front of shields supporting a decorative iron balustrade. The nave floor beneath the benches is boarded and carpeted elsewhere. Plain pine benches with rounded ends are considered original. Nave windows including the west window have tinted glass with coloured borders and inset geometrical patterns of circles and quatrefoils. The porch has a similar roof to the nave and contains a pair of holy water stoups.

The presbytery retains its original plan with four-panel doors throughout and simple architraves. Some windows have timber reveals and there is no plasterwork. A central stair hall has a tiled floor with pointed arch entrances to the linking block and main entrance, providing access to three ground floor reception rooms, one with a simple wooden chimney piece. A quarter-turn staircase has stick balusters, a simple chamfered newel post and handrail. Three first floor bedrooms retain simple timber fire surrounds, one with an arched 19th-century cast-iron grate.

Subsidiary features include a low, stepped stone rubble boundary wall set to the south of the church with double-chamfered ashlar copings retaining some railings, and square, buttressed ashlar gate piers with pyramidal caps to the openings and corners. Access to the west porch is flanked by a similar wall with central openings and gate piers. To the rear of the church are short stone walls ending in square, pyramidal-capped stone piers, formerly providing gated access to the presbytery yard.