War Memorial Lady Chapel in the Roman Catholic Church of St Peter and St Paul

War Memorial Lady Chapel in the Roman Catholic Church of St Peter and St Paul

This Lady Chapel is a First World War memorial dating from the remodelling and consecration of an earlier space in 1932. The chapel was originally built in 1897 by the architects Sinnott, Sinnott & Powell and was redesigned in the later 1920s as a memorial to those who died in the war. The mosaic scheme was created by Eric Newton of Ludwig Oppenheimer Ltd in Manchester. The building is constructed of hard red brick with a slate roof.

The chapel is a small rectangular space that opens off the east side of the shallow north transept of the main church. It stands in line with the east side of the north gable wall of the north transept. The exterior is built of hard glazed red brick laid in English garden wall bond (3:1 ratio) with blind walls and a double-pitched slate roof featuring a central raised rectangular roof lantern. The east elevation, which is not accessible, includes a projecting top-lit niche designed to hold an internal statue of the Virgin Mary.

The interior opens from the north transept through a pointed archway closed by alabaster altar rails with a decorative central brass gate bearing a cross. The floor is laid in terrazzo with a Greek key border and incorporates a motif reading "1914 / PAX / 1918". At the east end, three marble steps of decreasing size support a carved marble altar and a low rectangular reredos.

The walls are entirely faced in mosaic. The roof is timber panelled and boarded with curved sides and a flat central section, with a rectangular raised and glazed lantern at the centre featuring quatrefoil carving on the vertical side panels. The mosaic-covered walls display a geometric pattern of squares at dado level, echoing the tiled dado of the main church. Above this, the north and south walls each contain a central panel within a Tudor arch. The north wall shows the Annunciation, with the Virgin Mary kneeling before a lectern in a blue robe over a white gown, a vase of lilies at her feet, and the Angel Gabriel hovering to the right in pink robes with multi-coloured wings, holding a sceptre. The Dove hovers overhead with the words "ECCE / ANCILLA / DOMINI" (Behold the handmaiden of the Lord) above Mary's head. The south wall depicts the Crucifixion, with Christ on the Cross flanked by the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist, accompanied by the words "ECCE / MATER TUA" (Behold Thy Mother) written vertically. Both figures and drapery are rendered in a pre-Raphaelite style against gold backgrounds. To each side of the central panels are lower Gothic-tracery screens with blue panels and gold motifs of flowers, grape vines and crosses, topped by wide foliate borders in gold and blue.

The east wall is arched to echo the archway from the north transept. Above the dado level a narrow foliate border encloses a blue star-spangled panel with grass, lilies and other flowers at the base. Above the altar is a pointed-arch niche faced in blue geometric-pattern mosaic with concealed top-lighting to illuminate a statue of the Virgin Mary. The niche is flanked by two hovering angels in white with coloured wings.