Roman Catholic Church Of St Elizabeth

SCARISBRICK HALL ROAD SD 31 SE 8/21 Roman Catholic Church of St. Elizabeth - - II

Roman Catholic church. 1888, by Pugin and Pugin. Rock-faced red sandstone, red tiled roof. Nave on north-south axis, with east aisle, south-east chapel, apse, north-east tower and north-west baptistery. Decorated style. North gable end, with tower to left and baptistery to right, and angle buttresses, has at the right-hand end of the gable of the nave a 2-centred arched doorway with recessed door and hoodmould with foliated stop, linked to a dripband carried over 3 cusped lancets at ground floor, above which is a carved panel with Gothic lettering "Sancta Elizabetha Ecclesia 1888"; above this, a large traceried 4-light window under a hoodmould with figured stops, a gable dripband, and a traceried gable eye. The tower has a doorway like the other but with figured stops, a window above with 2 cusped lights, above this 2 cusped lancets, then a tall belfry window of 2 louvred cinquefoil lights with a quatrefoil in the head, a Lombard frieze between the buttresses, and a pyramidal roof swept over bracketed eaves. Except for the door, the other sides of the tower match this. On the east side the buttressed 4-bay aisle has square-headed windows of 1, 3, 3 and 2 cusped lights, and the nave has gablets containing wide arched traceried windows; at the south end of the aisle is a square porch and the chapel with parallel pitched roof and windows like those in the aisle, and at the south gable of this a memorial to Eliza Margaret De Biaudos Scarisbrick, Marchioness de Casteja (d.1878), with a carved tripartite canopy and momumental slab enclosed by fleur-de-lys iron railings. The apse is 5-sided, with a window of 2 cinquefoil lights in each side, that in the centre raised into a gablet, and all under hoodmoulds with figured stops. The west side has tall 2-light windows with mouchette tracery, at the north end a 5-sided baptistery with cusped lancets, and at the south end a large gabled sacristy. Interior: gallery at north end, over wide depressed arches forming an interior porch or narthex; aisle arcade of moulded arches on octagonal columns; arch-braced roof with Y-struts to principal rafters; arch-braced santuary roof with stencilled panels; chapel divided into 2 equal bays by a moulded stone arch, the ceiling painted blue with stencilled gold stars; on west side of nave a large elaborately carved wooden pulpit on a carved pedestal and approached by stairs also elaborately carved, probably Belgian, mid- to later C17 (Pevsner).

Listing NGR: SD3917013254