Presbytery of the Roman Catholic Church of St Mary (The Hidden Gem)

Presbytery of the Roman Catholic Church of St Mary (The Hidden Gem)

This presbytery dates from the 1870s and is built in Venetian Gothic style. It is attached to the east side (liturgical south side) of the church, with its front elevation facing onto Mulberry Street. The building is constructed of orange brick in Flemish bond with yellow and red sandstone and grey stone dressings, beneath a hipped slate roof. It comprises three storeys with a basement.

The front elevation presents two bays across three storeys. A high, moulded stone plinth incorporates the round heads of two basement windows. Wide, moulded string bands with pennant detail mark the first-floor level, with a plainer, narrower band at second-floor level. The eaves are finished with an entablature of shaped consoles and bosses.

The ground floor contains a window to the left and doorway to the right, both topped with single hoodmoulds rising in arches and terminating in carved head stops. The window is round-headed with two pointed-arch lights separated by a central, engaged red stone column with foliate capital and stained glass roundel above. A foliate-carved impost band frames banded red and grey voussoirs with a yellow keystone. The pointed-arch lights contain one-over-one pane sashes with etched lower panes. The doorway is flanked by engaged red stone columns with foliate capitals and a shaped stone lintel. Above it sits a plain round-headed overlight with banded red and grey voussoirs and a keystone carved with a relief head.

The first floor features a canted oriel window of yellow sandstone to the left, with a round-headed central window flanked by two smaller round-headed windows in the returns. To the right is a round-headed window with a pointed-arch hoodmould and carved head stops, with banded red and grey voussoirs and a yellow keystone. Both windows contain one-over-one pane sashes with leaded-light panes set with red glass diamonds.

The second floor has two round-headed windows to the left, each with a central, engaged red stone column with foliate capital, and a single round-headed window to the right. Moulded hood strings with round arches top each window, with red and grey stone voussoirs and yellow keystones. All windows have one-over-one pane sashes.

Internally, the small entrance lobby displays an enriched cornice and an elaborately panelled inner door with etched glass to the upper half and a rectangular, richly-coloured stained glass overlight. The public areas and main reception rooms on the ground and first floors are finished with enriched cornices, and archways opening off the stair hall feature elaborate console brackets.

The front ground-floor room retains an enriched hoodmould over the window, which displays a stained glass roundel and central, engaged column separating two pointed-arch lights containing etched glass panels.

A full-height open well staircase with a circular top lantern rises through the building. The closed-string stair features a timber balustrade with a moulded, ramped handrail incorporating decorative, pierced baluster panels set between column balusters, and varied, enriched column and square newel posts with ball finials. A round-headed doorway opens off the first quarter landing into the oratory in the south aisle of the church.

A doorway at second-floor level provides access into a large room built as a First World War memorial room over the south aisle of the church. This space is visible on its west side through clerestory windows. The room is supported on stone corbels and contains timber trusses with shaped braces and raised tie-beams, with clerestory windows and a fully-glazed pitched roof.

A 1960s extension incorporating a covered walkway linking Mulberry Street with Tasle Alley to the rear is not included in the listing.