Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin

This is a parish church built in 1869 by the architects Dawson and Davies, designed in the Gothic style. It is constructed of red brick with bands and dressings of sandstone and blue brick, with a slate roof topped by red ridge tiles.

The building comprises a nave with north and south aisles, a north-west steeple, a chancel with a north chapel, and a south vestry. The west front is buttressed with a prominent steeple set to the left of the gable. The gable wall is largely filled by three two-centred arched windows arranged in a stepped group, containing two, three, and two lights respectively. Each window has a plate-traceried multifoil in the head, a banded head, and linked hoodmoulds. Below the middle window sits a gabled porch with two-centred arched inner and outer doorways. The outer doorway is heavily decorated with shafts rising into deep impost bands carved with stiff-leaf ornament, and a moulded sandstone head with banded extrados. The stone gable coping features an apex stone inscribed 'M'.

The steeple has an arched doorway at ground floor level and chamfered stone weathering at eaves level. A clock face appears on the west side beneath a hood. Above this is a set-back belfry stage with large plate-traceried belfry windows whose arched heads spring from impost bands carved with stiff-leaf ornament and rise into gablets on either side of a steep pyramidal stone spire.

The south side of the nave displays a five-bay buttressed lean-to aisle. The first bay contains a two-centred arched doorway with a banded head and stone hoodmould. The remaining bays have small arched windows that alternate between single and coupled openings, all with banded heads. Five trefoil clerestory windows light the nave. The vestry projects at the south-east corner and has a chimney rising through the eaves at the junction of nave and chancel. The chancel features a plate-traceried three-light east window with a multifoil in the head, and the chapel has a similar two-light window.

The interior contains five-bay arcades of squat sandstone columns supporting two-centred arches with flat soffits and moulded extradoses. The capitals are notably large in the Romanesque style and are carved with differing forms of stiff-leaf foliation enlivened by naturalistic figures including pheasants, a sower, and a squirrel. The roof is arch-braced with scissor beams. A two-tiered brass chandelier dated 1763 hangs within the church. The furnishings include a marbled reredos, pulpit, and font.

The church contains numerous monuments, many transferred from the previous chapel and church on the site. These include a small brass of a knight, Sir Robert Hesketh (died 1541), located on the north wall of the chapel. A large monumental slab of alabaster portrays Thomas Hesketh of Rufford (died 1463) and his wife Margaret, with their children and the Hesketh coat of arms at their feet, accompanied by lettering around the margin with names. At the east end of the south aisle is a large table monument with an effigy of Sir Thomas George Fermor Hesketh (died 1872) carved by Matthew Noble. On the north wall hangs a wall monument to Lady Sophia Hesketh (died 1817) by Flaxman, copiously lettered. A tablet to Sir Thomas Hesketh (died 1778) also appears on the north wall, inscribed with verse by the poet Cowper.

The church replaced Hesketh Chapel, which was recorded in 1346 and rebuilt in 1746.