Church of St Mary and St Michael is a Grade II listed building in the Kirklees local planning authority area, England. First listed on 3 July 1985. Church.
Church of St Mary and St Michael
- WRENN ID
- rooted-bonework-rye
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Kirklees
- Constituency
- Dewsbury and Batley MP: Iqbal Mohamed (Ind)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 3 July 1985
- Type
- Church
- Address
- Church of St Mary and St Michael, Whitley Road
- OS grid reference
- SE 222 176
- Coordinates
- 53.65495, -1.66468
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
This is a large, Neo-Norman style church, built in 1847. The chancel appears to be a later addition. The exterior is constructed from hammer-dressed stone with ashlar dressings and a moulded ashlar plinth. The roofs are pitched and clad in blue, fishscale slates, with a plain, green slate roof over the chancel.
The church consists of a four-bay nave, a three-bay chancel, and a four-tier, square west tower topped with a squat, pyramidal, tiled roof. The nave windows are round-arched with two lights, incorporating round arched lights and a centre mullion, all with scalloped capitals. Diaperwork is present in the tympana, and there are bold hood moulds and a saw-tooth corbel-table to the eaves. The round-arched south doorway projects, features a gable, and is elaborately decorated with four orders of moulding, three colonnettes with decorative capitals and very elaborate hinges to the door. The chancel windows are small, round-arched, archivolted single lights, with a billet-moulded corbel-table. The east window contains three small round-arched lights, and there is a large wheel window in the gable apex.
The tower has angle buttresses and a small stair tower. The round-arched and heavily decorated west doorway has two colonnettes with scalloped capitals. At the second tier is a four-light window with round arch lights, the outer two being blind. Above this are intersecting over-arches, with similar windows to the north and south. The bell-chamber openings are two-light with a bold surround and colonnettes.
Inside, a four-bay round arcade stretches across each side, supported by broad columns with square bases and varied decorative capitals. An organ is located at the rear, housed under a fine, decorative tower arch on large responds. There is a large, round font with engaged colonnettes. The interior also features open-back pews with gothic finials, a good carved gothic wooden pulpit with linen-fold and traceried panels on a stone base, a wooden commemorative lectern from 1910—depicting an angel holding a reading desk—and an elaborately carved gothic chancel screen with doors. Choir stalls are located within the chancel, while the deep window reveals feature colonnettes and zig-zag decoration. Other features include stained glass, a piscina and sedilia, and close trusses to the chancel roof.
Local climate
Church of St Mary and St Michael receives an average of 930 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 71% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 61% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 41 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 79% of listed buildings. Of these, 22 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
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- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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