Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, including boundary wall, railings and gate piers

Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception

This Roman Catholic church was built between 1860 and 1862 to a design by Edward Welby Pugin, with a chancel added in 1876–77 by Pugin and Pugin to a simplified design. The church is constructed of rock-faced sandstone with red-sandstone ashlar dressings and a Welsh slate roof, and is built in the Decorated Gothic style.

The church is positioned at the junction of Cavendish Street and Price Street, aligned north-west to south-east. Its plan comprises a tall nave with lean-to side aisles, a polygonal apse at the south-east end with a wrap-around sacristy, and an unfinished north-east tower.

The exterior features red-sandstone ashlar banding across each elevation. The windows, which contain leaded glazing and some stained glass, have quoined red-sandstone ashlar surrounds, mostly taking the form of trefoil-arched lancets. Most windows include hoodmoulds with foliated stops; those to the apse and aisles are continuous. The west gable end of the nave is dominated by a large rose window, with a series of five narrow trefoil-arched lancets beneath it and a small glazed quatrefoil at the gable apex. The west entrance consists of a pointed-arched doorway with panelled double doors and a carved and painted tympanum incorporating a rose set within a quatrefoil. Above is a hoodmould with painted foliated stops. Two quatrefoils flank the doorway head, containing painted sacred monograms in relief. Full-height gableted buttresses mark the outer edges of the gable end, with wrought-iron cross finials at the base and crest of the gable behind and a further finial at the church's east end. The west end walls of the lean-to side aisles are lit by windows of paired trefoil-arched lancets with a glazed cinquefoil above, each with integral buttresses at the outer corner. The five-bay nave has a clerestory of wide single lancets arranged in pairs to each bay. The side aisles are divided into bays by buttresses, each bay containing three trefoil-arched windows. Two sets of lower confessional boxes project from the aisles on each side, each with three gablets set over roundels containing glazed quatrefoils. The north aisle has a gabled porch at its west end with a pointed-arched doorway containing boarded double doors. Rose windows at each east end of the aisles light side chapels. The unfinished tower at the north-east corner rises only to the eaves and incorporates a stair turret. Its north wall contains a decorative canopied niche with a statue of the Virgin Mary set above a trefoil-arched window. The five-sided apse is lit by triple-light trefoil-arched lancets in clerestory form; those to the north side are cut off by the tower. Beneath the windows runs a red-sandstone ashlar band bearing affixed relief lettering in calligraphic script reading "haec est domus Domini firmiter Aedificata Bene fundata est Supra firmam petram" (a chant for Vespers for the dedication of a church, meaning "this house of the Lord is firmly built, well anchored upon solid rock"). Above the sacristies to the east wall is a carved roundel containing a coat of arms and the date 1877. A low lean-to sacristy wraps around the apse, lit by two-light and three-light mullioned windows with segmental-arched heads and chamfered mullions. A low single-storey link attached to the south side connects to a 1952 presbytery, both later additions and not included in this listing.

Internally, the walls and ceilings are plastered with an abundance of stained glass throughout. The narthex has a quarry-tile floor and panelled ceiling, with double doors in a glazed timber screen leading to the main body of the church. The five-bay nave has a floorboard floor and incorporates arcades on each side formed of tall pointed arches supported by polished-granite columns with alternate plain and foliated sandstone capitals. At the west end is a large choir and organ gallery with a panelled front, containing a Rushworth & Dreaper organ of Liverpool (installed 1951) accessed by a panelled stair at the west end of the south aisle. The large west rose window depicts the Virgin Mary at the centre surrounded by lilies symbolising purity. The nave and apse roofs, both 1951 replacements, are carried on trussed rafters. The side aisles contain pointed arches springing from the nave arcade with pierced roundels to the inner spandrels. A richly carved sandstone pulpit of 1875, depicting the Annunciation, Nativity and Coronation of Our Lady, is supported on pink-marble and stone columnar shafts and accessed by a short spiral stone stair wrapped around one of the nave columns. A carved font of similar materials uses black rather than pink marble. The side aisles contain large carved and gilded timber Stations of the Cross and partly leaded-glazed doors accessing confessionals. At the east end of each aisle are side chapels with altars, reredoses and altar rails of stone and marble. The reredoses incorporate a central statue niche flanked by painted and gilded trefoil-arched panels, with stained-glass imagery of saints in the rose windows above. The sanctuary has a decorative tiled floor with marble altar rails and decorative metal gates reconstructed in the 1950s. A plain modern trestle-table altar stands before the original sandstone and marble altar set on a marble platform. Behind this is a two-stage reredos of 1895 by Pugin and Pugin, incorporating two rows of canopied niches with statues and partly-gilded paintings of saints and angels by Hardman and Co. The stained-glass clerestory windows in the sanctuary, badly damaged by bombing in 1941, were replaced by Hardman with some substitution of the original saints.

The church is enclosed on the west and north sides by a low sandstone wall surmounted by cast-iron railings. Aligned in front of each entrance are square gate piers with chamfered edges and gableted caps with quatrefoil decoration, with plainer piers terminating the walls at each end.