Church Of St Mary Bishophill Junior

Church of St Mary Bishophill Junior

Parish church. The tower dates to the 10th century and was heightened in the early 11th century, then repaired, reroofed and given a battlement around 1411. The nave is late 11th century with a mid 12th-century north arcade and north aisle. The chancel is early 13th century and was extended around 1300. A mid 14th-century south aisle and chancel north chapel were added, and the nave was reroofed in the 15th century. The south aisle was extended in the early 19th century. An extensive restoration in 1860 included construction of a south porch and new windows at the east end and to the south aisle. The tower was restored in 1980.

The base of the tower is built from Roman saxa quadrata (squared stone blocks) beneath irregularly coursed magnesian limestone and gritstone rubble with herringbone brickwork bands. The remainder of the church is built of gritstone and squared limestone with some rubble stone and ashlar dressings. The chancel chapel has a hipped slate roof; roofs on the north side are tiled while those on the south are of slate.

The east end has a gable cross. The chancel is two bays long with a north vestry and organ chamber in the former chancel chapel. The nave and north aisle are two bays, and the south aisle is three bays. The west tower has four stages.

The east end displays a reconstructed two-centred window of three uncusped lights with geometrical tracery in a double-chamfered surround. The north chapel has two segment-headed windows with trefoiled ogee heads and vestigial ogee tracery (largely renewed) in chamfered quoined surrounds. The south side of the chancel has a round-arched door with a window of paired lancets to the east and two single-light windows to the west, all in restored quoined and chamfered surrounds. The nave north aisle has a plank door beneath a chamfered four-centred arch to the east. West of this door is a square-headed window of two trefoiled lights with cusped inverted ogee tracery, followed by a similar but decaying window of three cusped lancets with trefoil tracery. The south aisle has an east-end window with reticulated tracery in a double-chamfered surround.

A gabled porch contains a two-centred doorway of three chamfered orders that die into chamfered jambs, with a corbelled hoodmould. Within, the south door is hollow-chamfered and broach-stopped. Three two-light windows with Decorated tracery open to the aisle: two to the east of the porch and one to the west.

The tower is quoined and has an embattled parapet with pinnacles. On the ground stage, the original west door has been replaced by a round-headed window of paired round-arched lights on a centre shaft with roll necking and cushion capital, in a stepped surround beneath a corbelled rolled hoodmould. To the south is a reconstructed square-headed window of two cusped ogee-arched lights. The second and third stages have slit lights to north and south. The belfry is set back above a string course, with paired round-arched belfry openings on a turned centre shaft with cushion capital beneath a stripwork arch on pilasters on each side. The west-side opening has been renewed.

The interior chancel has a north arcade of two chamfered two-centred arches on a slim octagonal pier with moulded capital. The chancel arch is asymmetrical and two-centred, of two chamfered orders with the inner corbelled and the outer continuous. The nave north arcade is round-arched, of two chamfered orders on a cylindrical pier with hollow-chamfered capital and base, with square responds with chamfered imposts on the lower face. At the east end is a pointed "confessional arch". The south arcade has two-centred, roll-moulded arches with the inner filleted, on a cylindrical pier with roll necking, hollow-chamfered octagonal capital, torus and chamfered base. The east respond is half cylindrical with similar detailing; the west respond is mutilated. The quoined tower arch is round, of two stepped orders beneath a hoodmould, on stepped double imposts on square-section responds.

The nave roof is five bays long, panelled with moulded beams with bosses at intersections. A 15th-century ceiling covers the tower ground stage, carried on a chamfered beam supported at its north end on a stone corbelled arch-braced post.

The medieval font has an octagonal bowl with round upper section on an octagonal stem and a 19th-century base, with an early 18th-century scrolled cover with dove and acorn finial. A hatchment dated 1793 is preserved. The reredos and octagonal pulpit with tester date to 1889, designed by Temple Moore. Four panels of late 15th-century glass are reset in the second south window of the chancel. Two bells, one 14th-century and the other 15th-century, await re-hanging at the west end of the nave. Monuments include a wall tablet in a bolection-moulded surround dedicated to Frances Nicholson, who died in 1721.