Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary, now Shaw Ardell African Methodist Evangelical Church, was built between 1856 and 1858 by J.S. Crowther. It is constructed of coursed sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings, covered by a slate roof, and designed in the Early 14th century Geometrical style. The church comprises a large nave and chancel with north and south aisles, distinguished by a very tall, north-west steeple. The four-stage tower has angle buttresses, three-light windows to the first stage, cusped lancets to the second, cusped two-light windows to the third, tall coupled belfry windows (originally two-lights, now void with decorative detailing), three orders of moulding and crocketed gablets, a carved corbel table with a gargoyle at the centre of each side, a parapet with crocketed corner pinnacles, and a tall, slender, octagonal spire with lucarnes on four levels. The tall five-bay nave features pilasters, a corbel table to each bay, a parapet with pitched coping and large crocketed pinnacles at the junction with the chancel, and coupled, two-centred arched, two-light clerestory windows with trefoil lights, quatrefoils in the heads, double-chamfered surrounds and hoodmoulds with figured stops – each stop is different, as are the stops to all other hoodmoulds. A very large five-light west window incorporates geometrical tracery. The three-bay chancel, to a similar height, has a clerestory with one window in a similar style in each bay, flanked by decorated blind arches, and a large east window with six very tall lights arranged in two groups with multifoil tracery and a wheel in the head. The buttressed aisles have large, two-centred arched, three-light windows with intersecting mullions, trefoil-headed lights, multifoil tracery in the heads, and hoodmoulds with carved stops – those to the nave aisle are figured, and those to the chancel aisle are foliated – and large crocketed pinnacles at the junction between the nave and chancel. Each aisle has a gabled porch with angle buttresses, with outer doorways featuring two-centred arches (the south side doorway has shafts and two orders of moulding, and the north side has semi-octagonal responds and wrought-iron gates), both accompanied by scissor-braced roofs. The inner doorways have two-centred arches with moulded surrounds and doors with elaborately foliated strap hinges. The interior has not been inspected. The church forms a group with St Mary's Junior School on Chichester Road, St Mary's Rectory on Parsonage Street, and Moss Side People's Centre on St Mary's Street.