Church Of St Mary

TARLETON BANK BRIDGE SD 42 SE 4/46 Church of St. Mary - 11-10-1968 II* - Church. 1719, with small addition 1824. Handmade brick (formerly all plastered), stone slate roof, bell-tower finished with ashlar. Small rectangular 4-bay building with semi-octagonal apse, small rectangular bell-tower finished with a rotunda, flat-roofed porch at this end. Each side has four large round-headed windows, all with keystones and with glazing bars continued as intersecting tracery, small triangular pilasters between the windows; stone gable copings with flaming-urn finials on kneelers and east gable; apse has one window in each canted side, like the others, a modillioned cornice, and in the centre a rainwater head decorated inter alia with the arms of Banastre of Bank (and dated 1719, according to VCH). The full-width porch at the west end has a round-headed doorway with imposts and keystone, flanked by round-headed windows with glazing to match the other windows, and a low stone parapet; the exposed gable wall above and the lower part of the tower are stuccoed, and each part has a small round-headed window; the upper part of the tower, above a band, has in each side a small belfry louvre with shaped triangular head and a moulded cornice; the rotunda has a ball finial surmounted by a weather vane on a slender stem; above the belfry louvre on the west side is a plaque dated 1824, with initials TD and GD. Interior: panelled west gallery, and added matching extension to this along most of the south wall on fluted pillars with moulded caps; box pews in eastern half; reading desk in centre of north side; panelled octagonal pulpit; old iron stove; flagged floor; coved ceiling except at west end over galleries, where 2 kingpost roof trusses with very splayed Y-struts are exposed; gallery staircase at south west corner, one straight flight with closed string and turned balusters (rises through west gable wall from porch). Used as mortuary chapel (presumably since 1886 when Church of Holy Trinity was built in Tarleton village).

Listing NGR: SD4567020128