Church Of Our Lady And The Apostles

Church of Our Lady and the Apostles, Shaw Heath

Roman Catholic church, built 1903–5, designed by Edmund Kirby of Liverpool. Red brick and terracotta construction with Welsh slate roofs, in the Decorated period influenced Gothic Revival style. The church contains stained glass attributed to Margaret Agnes Rope.

The plan comprises a nave with an apse at the east end and double entrances at the west. Side aisles continue as an ambulatory around the apse. A baptistery projects from the north at the west end of the nave, with a small side chapel interrupting the west end of the south aisle. The north side features a complex arrangement of two parallel ranges forming a large north chapel and confessional area, with a small porch to the west and vestries to the east. A corridor links the south-west corner of the church to the presbytery.

The west front is architecturally prominent. It features a deeply recessed large rose window above an arcade of 6 lancets, all framed by a full-height, four-centred arch of 9 ribbed orders. Below are paired entrances set in pointed arches of 6 ribbed orders that rise into a traceried parapet before the 6 lancets, augmented by 3 pinnacles. The west end is topped by a pair of louvered turrets with spires and a gable crowned by a cross finial. The nave comprises 11 bays to the north, the westernmost being blind. The clerestory features large 6-light windows in 2 stages with multifoiled lights and unusually pierced transoms set with quatrefoils. Aisle windows are simpler, single-staged designs. Two groups of 5 lancets light the confessionals, with a lower 4-light window to the east serving a vestry. The north chapel has a high-level 3-light north window. The apse clerestory windows match those of the nave, while the east window of the ambulatory is similar but taller. Rough brickwork around the east indicates an unrealised intention to rebuild and add an eastern chapel. Ambulatory windows are arranged as paired lancets in two stages with foiled transoms. North and south chapels and the confessional have small rose windows in their gables.

Interior walls are plastered except for the nave and apse arches, windows, and a quatrefoil frieze in moulded terracotta below the clerestory. Arcade arches flanking the north chapel are ribbed plaster, as is the very wide chancel arch. All arcading features polished marble cylindrical pillars. The nave roof is hammer-beamed without collars, scissor-braced instead. Nearly all windows are clear-glazed with diamond leading, though some have been replaced with plain glass and fake leading. East-facing windows to the chapels and ambulatory contain pictorial stained glass. The large rose window in the west end has a geometrical design in lead with mainly clear and pale yellow glazing.

The marble and alabaster high altar of 1925 incorporates an oak tabernacle (1905) and reredos, with an ornate oak screen between the sanctuary and ambulatory. A chancel screen in similar style was added circa 1989. Fittings added circa 1989, including the altar, font and lectern, are not of special interest. Oak confessionals remain, though other chapel fittings are thought to be later twentieth-century replacements. The baptistery has lost its font but retains a wrought-iron screen added in 1929. The large organ loft at the west end is thought to be original, though it creates an entrance lobby lower than the lights above the entrance doors. The organ was rebuilt in 1955, framing the rose window.

The church replaced an earlier church dedicated to Saints Philip and James. The west front bears similarity to Edmund Kirby's Church of the Sacred Heart, Chorley (1894). In 1925, the sanctuary was redesigned as a First World War memorial with a new high altar backed by a carved oak screen. Church re-ordering circa 1989 extended this screen, converting the sanctuary into an enclosed sanctuary chapel, with a new high altar, font and lectern placed before the chancel arch.

The adjoining presbytery is contemporary with the church, also built in red brick with slate roofs. However, it displays little evidence of having been designed as part of an architectural ensemble with the church, following typical late nineteenth and early twentieth-century domestic design and having undergone significant internal alteration following conversion from a residence for multiple priests into a single residence.