Cathedral Church Of St Marie

Cathedral Church of St Marie, Sheffield

This cathedral church and attached parish room was built between 1846 and 1850 to designs by Weightman & Hadfield, with the Munster Lady Chapel added in 1878–79 by M E Hadfield & Son. The building is constructed in ashlar and coursed squared stone with ashlar dressings, featuring steep pitched slate and lead roofs throughout. It is designed in the Gothic Revival style.

The plan is cruciform, comprising a chancel with side chapels, lady chapel, parish room, transepts, a nave with clerestory, aisles with a south porch and north side chapel, and a south-west tower with spire.

The exterior displays a plinth, sillband, string courses, coped parapets and gables with crosses. Windows are adorned with hoodmoulds. The chancel's east gable features angle buttresses and a 7-light pointed arch window with flowing tracery, hoodmould and mask stops. The south side has a 3-light window with Kentish tracery and similar hoodmould. The south-east chapel contains a 2-light pointed arch window to the east and a 3-light window in the south gable. Below this is a transomed 2-light window with blind tracery and flat head. To the left is a canted projection with string courses and three lancets. To the right stands a single-storey square porch with chamfered pointed doorway and steps to the west, and a 2-light window to the south. At the south-east corner sits an octagonal stair tower of three stages, topped with a leaded spire and three 2-light pointed arch windows to the top stage. To its right is a single-storey parish room with parapet, featuring a 3-light window to the left and five 2-light windows to the right, all with flat heads. Below these are two small mullioned openings. Further right is a 2-storey canted porch with parapet, a crenellated octagonal stair turret, and a large clustered side wall stack with three flues. To the west is a chamfered square-headed double doorway with above it a double niche containing figures, framed by nodding ogee canopies and crocketed gables. On each side are crocketed gables, and below are two shields. The right return has a small 2-light flat-headed window and below two flat-headed single-light windows.

The north-east chapel has two 2-light pointed arch windows to the north. The transepts feature gables with angle buttresses and 4-light pointed arch windows, with the south transept also having a 3-light pointed arch window to the west. The nave clerestory displays on each side a 2-light and seven 3-light pointed arch windows with linked hoodmoulds. The west end has a 4-light pointed arch window with a trefoil above and below a central moulded doorway with hoodmould.

The south aisle has buttresses with, to the left of the porch, a 2-light pointed arch window and to its right two similar windows. The right buttress contains a niche with a figure. The south porch displays crocketed angle buttresses and a coped gable with a moulded doorway featuring triple shafts and hoodmould, and on each side a trefoil window. The north aisle has a moulded doorway with single shafts and above it a 3-light pointed arch window with a central canopied niche, both with hoodmoulds. On either side are 3-light pointed arch windows, and in the west end a similar window. The north side chapel contains two single lancets to the north and a 2-light pointed arch window in the west end.

The south-west tower comprises three stages with gabled 2-stage clasping buttresses topped with crocketed spires. The lower parts of the buttresses to the west contain figure niches. The first stage has a 3-light pointed arch window to the south and west. The second stage has a niche with figure to the south and a similar window to the west. The bell stage features a 2-light pointed arch bell opening on each side. A set-back octagonal spire is linked by flying buttresses to the tower pinnacles and displays three tiers of lucarnes with crocketed gables.

The interior chancel features an arch-braced hammer beam roof with ogee wind braces and traceried spandrels, all painted and gilt. A double coved arch with hoodmould and angel stops is supported on clustered triple shafts. The east end displays a roll-moulded window surround. The south side has a doorway to the east and a 4-seat sedilia with crocketed gables to the west, whilst a moulded arch spans a 6-bay Decorated stone screen with Latin inscription and wall painting on the chapel side. The north side contains a west arch with an organ and an east arch with a wrought-iron screen.

The south chancel chapel has a Decorated-style traceried stone screen to the west and an elaborate reredos with two stained glass windows to the east, flanked to the right by a piscina. The south side displays an Early English-style blind arcade with figures of saints. The lady chapel contains a screen wall with Decorated-style balustrade and moulded pointed doorway flanked by single windows. The octagonal turret has a blind arcaded lower level and a stone winder stair leading to a shrine with moulded pointed arches and two round piers, framing a central large standing figure.

The north-east chapel features a coffered panelled wooden vault, a wrought-iron screen and gates, and stained glass windows of 19th and 20th century date to the north and east, with a traceried aumbry to the east. The transepts have common rafter roofs with collars. The south transept has two arches to the east into adjoining chapels, while the north transept has a single arch to the east into the east chapel and two shrines with gilt figures.

The nave comprises a 5-bay arcade to the south and a 6-bay arcade to the north, with clustered quatrefoil piers, double chamfered arches and linked hoodmoulds, covered by an arch-braced panelled wagon roof. The west end contains a stained glass window. The south-west bay has a stilted segmental arch to the tower chamber. The south aisle has a strutted lean-to roof and mid to late 19th century stained glass windows, with a moulded doorway and stoup. The north aisle has a similar roof and a segmental pointed doorway with niche and figure above, flanked by stained glass windows, and a moulded east arch to the transept. The north side chapel has an arch-braced lean-to roof with wall shafts and a traceried east opening into the transept, with a glazed tile dado featuring memorials to priests.

The rib-vaulted tower chamber has moulded arches and is fitted with late 20th century confessionals.

The stained glass includes windows in the nave and south transept designed by Pugin, the east window by G Goldie, and the south transept south window by Wailes.

Notable fittings include the chancel reredos designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin in 1850, an organ case of 1875 by J F Bentley, and a 19th century traceried pulpit, with other fittings of 20th century date.

Memorials include a shrine with an alabaster figure of 1850 by Thomas Earp to Father Charles Pratt, a Gothic wall tablet with relief figures of 1885 to Matthew Hadfield the architect, and an ashlar table tomb with effigy of 1849.