Church Of St Jude

Church of St Jude, Free School Lane, Savile Park

A parish church built in 1889-90 by William Swinden Barber, a Halifax architect active from 1855 to 1898, at a cost of £8,000. The church is constructed of coursed, hammer-dressed sandstone with freestone dressings and a graded-slate roof.

The building comprises an aisled nave with a south-west tower, chancel with a south organ chamber and north chapel. It is designed in a free-Gothic style and forms a large suburban church in a prominent position at the edge of Savile Park, making an important contribution to the historical character of the local townscape.

The four-stage tower features angle buttresses with attached pinnacles rising at the bell stage, and an embattled parapet with corner pinnacles. The lower stage functions as a porch, with a south doorway having continuous moulding and cusped lancets in the east and west walls. Above are pairs of cusped lancets under drip moulds, round clock faces in square surrounds under drip moulds, and in the bell stage, pairs of two-light transomed openings. The nave west front is composed of two tall two-light transomed windows with Decorated tracery either side of a central buttress. Aisle windows display alternate Decorated and Perpendicular tracery and are two-light except for three-light windows at the east end of the north aisle and the west end of the south aisle. Five triple stepped clerestorey windows have ogee-headed lights. The chancel windows feature Perpendicular tracery: a five-light east window and transomed three-light south and two-light north windows. The transeptal south organ chamber has a two-light south window and a lean-to on its west side with an ogee-headed doorway. The north chapel was probably once a vestry, indicated by a stone stack on the north-east angle of the nave.

Inside, five-bay arcades have octagonal piers with double-chamfered arches. The chancel arch is similar but has polygonal responds and foliage capitals. The nave roof features arched-brace trusses with tracery above, while the chancel has a four-bay cusped arched-brace roof. The arch to the south organ chamber has a continuous roll mould and label with a boat, the attribute of St Jude, on one of the stops. The two-bay north chancel arcade has a central pier of moulded sub-rectangular section without capitals. Walls are plastered, and floorboards lie beneath the pews.

The church retains nearly all its original late 19th-century fixtures. These include an octagonal Perpendicular-style font with an ornate bowl and panelled stem. Pews have ends with ogee-headed tops and linenfold panelling (two rows have been removed from the east end of the nave). A churchwarden's pew against the west wall has a coved canopy. The wooden pulpit is polygonal with open Gothic tracery, standing on a stone base and steps. Choir stalls have ends with ogee tops and blind tracery, with open arcaded frontals. The communion rail features wide arches with delicate tracery. The sanctuary walls are lined with Gothic panelling and a reredos of five niches under tracery, cornice and brattishing. The east window contains stained glass depicting Christ in Glory, dated 1910. The chapel east window shows the Nativity by F.W. Cole, created in 1972.