Church Of Our Lady Star Of The Sea

The Church of Our Lady Star of the Sea is a Roman Catholic church built between 1898 and 1901 by Sinnott, Sinnott & Powell. It is constructed from yellow sandstone ashlar, with a snecked tower and red sandstone dressings, topped with slate roofs. The church is designed in the 13th-century Gothic style and features a tall nave oriented on a north-south axis, with an uncompleted southeast tower, east and west aisles, a baptistery at the south end, and a triple transept at the north end of the west aisle. The north sanctuary is full-height and has side offices to the west.

The exterior includes a two-bay south gable with angle buttresses and a central buttress that supports a statue of Our Lady in a niche. It features two 2-centred arched doorways with square-headed doorways, two 2-centred arched three-light traceried windows with deep moulded reveals and hoodmoulds, a circular traceried window in the center of the gable, a small triangular arched window above it, and gable coping with a cross finial. The tower to the right rises above eaves level in three unequal stages, with coupled pointed arches on the first stage, a pair of cusped lancets on the second, and uncompleted belfry louvres on the third, topped with a pyramidal roof. The baptistery on the left has a pitched roof and a large 2-centred arched traceried three-light window with a hoodmould. The clerestory of the nave features large 2-centred arched traceried three-light windows, while the aisles and aisle transept contain 2-centred arched one-light windows with hoodmoulds. The five-sided sanctuary has gables over three-light windows, and the hoodmoulds of the windows have differing figured stops.

Inside, the church has six-bay arcades with 2-centred arches supported by polished granite columns, which feature unusually large naturalistic foliation capitals that are all different and now painted. The interior also includes a hammerbeam roof, reflecting a conservative design for its time.