Church Of Our Lady Of The Assumption

The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption is a Catholic church built between 1901 and 1902, designed by Robert Curran, an architect from Warrington, with fittings by John Douglas of Chester. It is constructed of coursed rock-faced sandstone with ashlar red sandstone dressings, steeply pitched roofs with coped gables, and Welsh slate roofing incorporating decorative banding. The style is a restrained Decorative Gothic Revival.

The church has a linear plan, oriented east-west, with a south-west corner tower incorporating a porch. It includes a nave, north and south aisles, chapels, a chancel, and a sanctuary. The west front is steeply gabled, featuring a tall, five-light Geometric-traceried window within a deeply moulded pointed arch. Below this is a similarly moulded arch to the west door, with a hood mould featuring finely sculpted head stops depicting Christ and the Virgin Mary. Plank double doors have elaborate strap hinges. A moulded string runs along the cill level, linking the west window to flanking stepped buttresses. Lean-to aisles extend along the north and south sides, with the south aisle extending from the rear of the two-stage south-west tower. The tower has angle buttresses and a deeply moulded surround to the porch doorway on the south elevation. Above the doorway is an elaborate niche with a corbelled base and a cusped head within a crocketed gablet. The north and south aisles have cusped two-light windows with hoodmoulds to four-centred arch heads. Clerestory windows above are of three lights with flat heads at eaves level. Shallow buttresses delineate the nave and chancel bays. Attached single bay chapels are located at the end of each aisle, with steeply pitched roofs, coped gables, cross finials, and traceried circular windows with quatrefoils surrounding central trefoils. The chancel and canted sanctuary have a blind east wall and two-light windows to flanking canted walls.

The interior features a tall, five-bay nave with pointed arches to aisle arcades supported on polished red granite columns. Roof trusses are carried on slender attached shafts rising from corbels within the intersections of the nave arcade arches. Elaborate screens are present in the side chapels, along with servers' stalls and a canopied sedilia, all designed by John Douglas of Chester and executed by Bridgemans of Lichfield. A pulpit from 1936 was designed by Joseph Reubens of Bruges. Stained glass sanctuary windows were added in 1932 and 1939, designed by Margaret Rope.

The church was originally intended to include a 150-foot spire on the south-west tower. The fittings designed by Douglas represented his only Catholic commission, and their designs were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1907.

The church is of special architectural interest as a carefully composed ecclesiastical design of the early 20th century, with little substantive alteration and retaining high-quality fixtures and fittings, including designs by the notable Chester architect John Douglas.