Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a Grade II listed church built between 1826 and 1828 by architects Charles Watson and J. P. Pritchett. It is constructed from deeply-coursed, horizontally-tooled sandstone and features tile roofs. The church is oriented almost north to south and consists of a five-bay nave and chancel combined, with a school room located in a half-basement beneath the chancel. At the north end, there is a tower flanked by low porches that have lean-to roofs against the nave.

Designed in the Gothic revival style, the church includes hoodmoulds, embattled parapets on the main body and porches, and crocketed corner pinnacles. The tower is full-height and features offset diagonal buttresses, a double door beneath a transomed two-light window, and an offset band above and below a clock set in a chamfered square recess. The tower also has two-light louvred belfry openings, and the buttresses rise as pinnacles linked by a crested balustrade with ogee-headed openings. Each porch has a double door and a lancet window in the side wall.

The body of the church has a deeply-chamfered band above square-headed basement windows at the chancel end, with angle buttresses that rise as pinnacles. A sill band connects transomed two-light windows with cusping, and narrow transomed windows flank a three-light transomed altar window that features stained glass and a quatrefoil opening above. The roll-moulded embattlement copings add to the decorative details.

Inside, there is a west gallery with a balustrade made of trefoil-headed panels that bear the Royal Coat of Arms, and the dado is styled similarly. The porches contain 18th-century benefaction boards salvaged from the Holy Trinity Chapel, which previously occupied the site. An octagonal font with a finely carved Jacobean oak cover has been raised as a canopy on a 20th-century frame; this cover was removed from Rotherham All Saints Church around 1875. The church was largely financed by the Church Commissioners and William, Earl Fitzwilliam, who was responsible for its management.