St Makarios Church St Michael And All Angels Church

This is an Anglican church, dating to 1885. It was designed by Chorley and Connon. The church is constructed of coursed gritstone with a slate roof, and the interior walls are lined with buff-coloured terracotta. It is built in the Gothic Revival style.

The exterior comprises a four-bay nave with north and south aisles, and a lower two-bay chancel. A timber-framed south porch features board double doors and ornate hinges. The side walls of the porch are infilled with terracotta plaques depicting raised patterns of crosses and lilies, set beneath a ribbed roof with wooden side benches. A gabled south transept has a bellcote. The nave clerestory and aisles have paired cusped lights, with buttresses between. The east window is a five-light decorated window, while the west window has two paired lights. Gable copings and cross finials top the building.

Inside, slender octagonal nave piers have moulded caps and double chamfered arches, with ornate cruciform metal plaques in the spandrels, likely lamp supports. A high and wide chancel arch is also present. A moulded string runs at window sill level, below which is a band of moulded terracotta with a floral scroll design in relief. The floor is mosaic in brown, cream, and red, with bench pews featuring carved end finials, and a barrel-vaulted roof with iron ties.

The chancel contains corbel angels carrying musical instruments and scrolls, round windows between them, and a timber barrel-vaulted roof. The floor is tiled in polychrome, and there are choir stalls with poppy-head end finials. The sanctuary has a red and white marble floor and a mosaic tile reredos, dating from 1906, depicting the Sermon on the Mount flanked by St Michael and the Visitation. Pink marble columns flank arched niches. An iron and brass altar rail features elaborate cross supports with glass bosses. An octagonal wooden pulpit has cusped open panels and a stem with roll-moulded brackets. The stone font has a clustered column supporting a round bowl with projecting saints’ heads, and a carved wooden cruciform cover.

Wall memorials include those to the Schofield and Armitage families. A fine white marble Classical-style memorial on the east wall of the north aisle commemorates Edward Armitage, who died in 1829. The vestry, with built-in cupboards and partition, is located on the north-east, while the organ is on the south-east.

The church replaced an earlier building by John Carr, the cupola from which remains in the churchyard. The foundation stone at the east end was laid by AW Pawson of Farnley, and the Revd FE Brodrick, Rector.