Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Dormition of The Holy Mary Mother Of God, and associated boundary walls and gate piers

A former Congregational church sunday school of 1881, converted as a Ukrainian Catholic Church in 1954, by AH Davies-Colley.

MATERIALS: Kerridge sandstone with Alderley stone dressings, slate roof.

PLAN: standing to the west of Bury Old Road, orientated east-west, with aisled nave, apse and narthex. The entrance faces east; liturgical orientations are used below.

EXTERIOR: late Decorated Gothic style, with canted plinth and sill band. The east end is gabled with buttresses and a polygonal apse flanked by single-light windows with cusped heads, and with two cusped oculi above. The north aisle and apse also have cusped-head windows.

The north wall has aisle buttresses and ogee-head windows, with a clerestory of three, three-light cusped-head windows, and a north-east doorway with depressed-arch head, hoodmould with carved stops, and foliate carving in the tympana. To the right are double gables with a central buttress, and each with pointed window with tracery and stopped hoodmould. At the right is a polygonal projecting cellar stair. The south wall is similarly detailed and fenestrated, but with no doorway. The nave has a central hexagonal fleche in slate and lead.

The west end has a flat-roofed narthex with decorative parapet and north and south entrances detailed as the north-east doorway, flanked by the projecting polygonal stairs, and with the gabled west wall behind. Between the entrances are two-light windows, separated by a relief-carved datestone of 1881. Below this is the Holodomor memorial plaque of 1983 in black granite, with Tryzub (trident) symbol against a cross, ears of wheat, and inscription in Ukrainian and English, reading IN MEMORY/ OF SEVEN/ MILLION/ VICTIMS OF/ MOSCOW MADE/ FAMINE IN/ UKRAINE/ 1932-1933. The parapet above bears the relief inscription (now heavily worn), BOYS/ SUNDAY/ SCHOOL/ GIRLS. Between the entrances is a cellar area surrounded by original horned wrought-iron railings. The west wall has two pointed traceried windows, with a cusped oculus above.

INTERIOR: windows are leaded with some colour, but no stained glass. There is a western choir loft with a panelled front and the narthex contains stairs down to the cellar toilets. The nave roof is vaulted with hammerbeams braced on corbels and there are paintings of the Evangelists in the spandrels of the nave arcades. The sanctuary apse is decorated with wall paintings imitating gilded carvings and the iconostasis is modern, by Ukrainian craftsmen. The east wall is painted with Christ enthroned.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the stone boundary wall surrounds the east and north sides, with substantial chamfered and polygonal gate piers at the entrance.