Roman Catholic Church Of The Blessed Virgin Mary

The Roman Catholic Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built in 1892 by Peter Paul Pugin of Pugin and Pugin, with the steeple added between 1867 and 1868. It is constructed of stone and features a slate roof in the Early English style. The church has a south tower with a splay-footed spire, a nave with double transepts, and a polygonal apsidal chancel surrounded by a lower ambulatory.

The tower consists of three stages, with angle buttresses, an arched and moulded south doorway, and two cusped lancets with cusped tracery in the heads, linked by hoodmoulds. Each side of the tower has triple belfry louvres set in square recesses, and there is a single louvre with a hoodmould in each splay of the spire. The buttressed nave has four bays and cross gables on three of them, featuring seven tall lancets and round windows in each gable adorned with four quatrefoils and hoodmoulds. The transepts are also buttressed, with a flying buttress on the east transept, double gables, and two three-light windows with curvilinear tracery.

The clerestorey of the apse has arched windows with cusped lights and mouchettes, connected by hoodmoulds, while the ambulatory has rectangular windows with two cusped lights. Attached to the west transepts are various flat-roofed offices that connect to the presbytery, which is not included in this listing.

Inside, the church features a hammerbeam roof with tie-rods and arch-braced collars, with wall posts supported on slim shafts. The double transept arches and transverse arches in the transepts are supported by polygonal columns and have hoodmoulds with figured stops. Side chapels open off the transepts, although the arches of the west transept are now filled by a glazed screen. The wide chancel arch is flanked by tall narrow arches leading into the ambulatory, which has polished columns with octagonal caps and a ribbed tunnel vault roof. The church also boasts a very ornate canopied reredos for each of its three altars.