Church of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This church, built between 1932 and 1935, was designed by the nationally significant architect W.D. Caröe and represents a late flowering of the Arts and Crafts movement approached from a late Perpendicular perspective. It stands near the centre of a housing estate in north-west Leeds and was constructed to serve the population of the new suburb of Hawksworth Wood, which the City Council had founded in the 1920s. The church replaced an earlier wooden structure of 1922 and was part funded by W.M Butler, a director of Kirkstall Forge where many local residents worked.

The building is constructed in knapped flint with sandstone dressings and a Westmorland slate roof. The nave, aisles and chancel sit under a single height roof, with a south porch at the west end and a baptistery, porch and vestries on the north side. A small bell cote sits on the south side at the junction of nave and chancel. The ashlar quoins and dressings are irregular in size, characteristic of the Arts and Crafts approach.

The chancel steps in from the nave, with an even narrower east end comprising a sanctuary. The east window has five lights with a depressed arch and tracery, flanked by gabled buttresses to each side with a central gabled buttress ending below the east window. The flint masonry of the sanctuary walls is divided into panels by sandstone ashlar, forming patterns resembling blind windows, triangles and circles. Two single light windows appear on the south side of the chancel and one on the sanctuary.

The nave extends five bays with four windows on the south side and three on the north, each of three lights with simple plate tracery beneath flat-headed sandstone lintels. The roof sweeps down over the aisles with a deep overhang. The west end features gabled buttresses to each side of a wide pointed segmental arch in ashlar, with a central gabled buttress rising to the top of the arch and dividing two two-light traceried windows. A broad band of alternating ashlar and flint work forming triangles runs beneath window height.

The south porch has a pitched roof and a recessed pointed arch door beneath a segmental arch ashlar lintel. The flintwork is divided by ashlar similar to the sanctuary, and over the door is a small shield bearing a device of three swords. A two-light window appears on the west side. The north porch is smaller with a battlemented front and recessed segmental arched door, attached to the baptistery. The baptistery, at the western end of the north side, has a pitched roof and two-light windows to the west and north sides.

At the junction of nave and chancel on the north side are the choir and clergy vestries, with a small entrance porch at the east end. This has a pitched roof lower than the main roof, extending down over the porch. Two two-light windows appear in its gable end and single light windows on its east and west sides. A chimney stack in ashlar projects centrally from the gable end above a string course. The porch door faces north with two small windows to the east side. Steps on the east side lead down to a basement boiler.

The bell cote on the south side is in sandstone ashlar, thin with a gabled roof pierced by two openings each containing a bell. Narrow buttresses to east and west and a single angle buttress to the south support it. A narrow single light window appears at ground floor level and a small round light above the main roof line.

The interior represents a complete and carefully unified artistic ensemble. The chancel and sanctuary have a single barrel vaulted boarded roof. The curtained reredos is framed with wooden pilasters and a carved wooden frieze. To the south side of the sanctuary is a double sedilia and aumbrey set within a unifying ashlar band, with wooden backs and circular windows above. In the chancel, double rows of finely carved wooden choir stalls to either side feature scroll motifs, inscriptions and carved angels at the head of each end. On the north side is an open wooden screen behind which are the organ and door to the vestries. The rood screen is finely carved in wood with allegorical symbols and gothic script picked out in gold, with a cut-work frieze above which hangs a large cross in wood and gold. Arches to either side frame passageways to the organ and sedilia. In front to the left is a matching wooden pulpit. All the woodwork was designed by Caröe and made by Bowman of Stamford. The altar stands before the rood screen.

The walls of the nave are plastered and narrow passage aisles feature arcading of double chamfered arches springing directly from octagonal piers with no capitals, standing on rectangular bases. The roof has shaped open trusses resting on simple stone corbels. Most seating comprises free standing chairs, though the wooden front rail is by Robert Thompson, as are a banner stand, hymn board, credence table, altar and stools. At the rear of the nave is a stone font with tapered sides on four square section supports, with carved scrolls on the font cover. Doors to the porches are brass-studded leather with circular windows with grilles. Radiators are located in segmentally arched recesses. The baptistery now functions as a children's area and contains the only stained glass in the church, added in the 1950s. A foundation stone in the west wall records the name of H.M Butler, who gave the choir stalls, altar, rood screen and pulpit.

The site also houses a church hall and a brick vicarage designed in 1953. Minor alterations were carried out in 1972 by Alban Caröe, the architect's son, involving moving the high sanctuary down into the body of the nave and relocating the font from the baptistery to the centre of the rear of the nave. This was the last church designed by W.D. Caröe, and he was assisted by his son Alban on the project.