Church Of St Bartholomew

LEEDS

SE2733 WESLEY ROAD, Armley 714-1/33/502 (East side) 26/09/63 Church of St Bartholomew (Formerly Listed as: CHURCH ROAD, Armley (South side (off)) Church of St Bartholomew)

GV II*

Anglican church. Nave aisles and transepts 1872-77. By Henry Walker and Joseph Athron. Tower, porches and vestry completed c1900. Coursed sandstone quarried in Horsforth, ashlar, slate roof. Gothic Revival style. Lancets. Tower over crossing with octagonal bell stage with pinnacles and short octagonal spire. Clerestory has 6 pairs of lancets, low aisles have 5 lancets and projecting gabled porches. W end with tripartite lancets and turrets. Polygonal apse has 7 lancets. Rose window in transept gables over 2 rows of 3 lancets. N porch. INTERIOR: spacious, faced internally with limestone from Ancaster, nave of 6 bays with quatrefoil columns of Greenmoor stone, attached columns rise to tie-beam trusses with angels holding shields. Chancel: vaulted ceiling, reredos erected 1877 has alabaster carvings of the Magi, crucifixion and Old Testament figures above, black, red and white altar steps, mosaic panels in Pre-Raphaelite style depicting Annunciation and life of Christ; lower-level mosaics depicting angels symbolising Prayer and Peace and 3 saints date from 1920s. Finely-carved choir, clergy stalls, screen. Pulpit of alabaster and marble, with open cusped arches, heads between, copied from that at the shrine of St Sedbald in Neurenburg. A stone double arcade supports the organ chamber with the Schulze Organ, fine carved case by Walker and Athron has 5 angels playing musical instruments (see below). West end: windows depict parables of Jesus and archangels; mosaic below of Christ's Baptism watched by saints and martyrs; octagonal arcaded font of red and black marbles. Fine wooden glazed screen form inner porches to N and S doors. MEMORIAL SCULPTURE: at W end of N aisle Benjamin Gott of Armley House, d.1839, by Joseph Gott, the pink veined marble base has a darkened plaque with tribute which includes the words: '...he maintained with inflexible uprightness/ the character of a merchant/ with impartial justice the office of a magistrate/ and with unshaken confidence the warmth of friendship/ he was always ready to promote the welfare of the

town of Leeds...'; S aisle has 'Faith comforting the Mourner', commemorating Benjamin and Elizabeth Gott's 2 sons who died in Paris and Athens. Built with Christ Church (qv) to accommodate the rapidly expanding population of south Leeds, the church replaced a small chapel, the foundations of which, with Gott vault, are in churchyard to N. The organ was first installed in the grounds of Meanwood Towers (qv) by TS Kennedy, a gift to his wife; it was taken to Harrogate before being installed here and it has been described as 'undoubtedly the grandest example of a modern Gothic organ in England' (Freeman, 'English Organ Cases', quoted in Pevsner).

Listing NGR: SE2730133209