Church Of St Mary By The Sea

Church of St Mary by the Sea

A Roman Catholic church built between 1879 and 1883 by ME and C Hadfield of Sheffield, with an altar of the Sacred Heart designed by Pugin and Pugin. The building is constructed in red brick laid in English garden wall bond with ashlar dressings, and has a Welsh slate roof. It is designed in the Gothic Revival style.

The church comprises a four-bay aisled nave with a west entrance and north chapel, followed by a three-bay chancel with a vestry to the south. The exterior features a plinth, buttresses with offsets to angles and between bays, a sill string course, and a moulded, stepped and dentilled brick eaves cornice throughout.

The nave has three-light pointed trefoiled windows to the north and south sides. On the south side are a pair of stone-coped ground-floor canted bays for confession boxes. The west end has a central section flanked by buttresses, with a gabled surround containing a pointed moulded arch that dies into the jambs. Above the entrance is a niche holding a statue of the Virgin and Child. A stepped string course rises above the entrance, with a pointed five-light window featuring Geometric tracery above. The nave gable is coped with flush ashlar bands and a slit-light.

The north chapel has a chamfered ashlar plinth and a canted east side with a central two-light pointed traceried window flanked by trefoiled lancets beneath a hoodmould. A pointed trefoiled three-light north window sits beneath a hoodmould.

The chancel has a moulded ashlar plinth with pairs of trefoiled lancets to the north and south sides, each with a continuous hoodmould and flush ashlar bands. The east end has angle buttresses and a central buttress beneath a five-light window with a hoodmould and flush ashlar bands, topped by a coped gable with a finial. A foundation stone on the south side of the chancel, dated 1880 and 1883, records the architect's name in Latin inscription.

The south vestry adjoins the Presbytery and features trefoiled two-light windows and an ovolo-moulded eaves cornice. A projecting two-storey single-bay gabled organ chamber extends from the south of the chancel, with a pair of lancets and a stepped coped gable rising to a roof-chimney topped by a pair of octagonal shafts. An octagonal spirelet with banded slates stands between the nave and chancel.

The interior features nave arcades of tall pointed double-chamfered arches resting on alternating cylindrical and octagonal piers with moulded capitals and bases on tall octagonal plinths. A pointed moulded chancel arch has octagonal responds. The chancel contains marble and wrought-iron sanctuary rails, a marble altar and reredos flanked by blind arcaded panels housing a piscina and aumbry. The walls are lined with wooden panelling and a carved floral frieze. A pointed arched south doorway with a blocked arch and balcony above connects to the chancel. Ornately carved choir stalls occupy the space.

The nave includes a gallery with an ornate front carried on octagonal wooden columns with tall stone bases, and a columned west organ gallery. A marble and wrought-iron pulpit with a tester and balustraded staircase stands in the nave. Both the nave and chancel have arch-braced roofs, with the chancel roof featuring painted panels.

The north chapel contains an elaborately sculpted stone altar and reredos with marble columns, demi-figures of Christ and saints in canopied niches, traceried panels with marble insets, and stained glass windows above. Two inscribed tablets are mounted in the chapel: one recording the raising of the altar by Georgina Heneage and its dedication in 1887, and another, an ornate memorial to Thomas Young of Kingerby, Lincolnshire, who was a benefactor of this church and of many churches throughout the county.

This is one of the last churches designed by the partnership of Hadfield and Son. Together with the neighbouring Presbytery and its associated garden walls, it forms part of a notable group of Victorian and Edwardian educational and religious buildings erected on land provided by the Heneage Estate.