Church Of St Mary Virgin

The Church of St Mary the Virgin is a church built between 1890 and 1893 by the architectural firm Bodley and Garner from London, with construction carried out by H. R. Franklin of Oxford at a cost of £8,000. The south chancel chapel was enlarged in 1927. The church is constructed of coursed squared stone with limestone ashlar dressings, offsets, and bellcotes. It features a 5-bay nave with lean-to aisles, bellcotes, a south porch, and a north door. The chancel has 2 bays, with a north vestry and a south chapel, all designed in the Decorated style.

The nave windows are 2-light with reticulated tracery, while the south side is buttressed, and the north doorway may have originally had a porch. The chapel has 3-light square-headed windows with traceried heads, and there is a large 3-light east window with reticulated tracery, featuring three ashlar panels below with shields. At the west end, two deep reducing buttresses are joined by an arch at the top, supporting a square bellcote with a pyramidal ashlar roof. A simpler bellcote is located at the east end of the nave.

Inside, the church has a good interior with a 5-bay heavily-moulded arcade on filleted quatrefoil piers, as well as a 2-bay arcade between the chancel and chapel. The nave and chancel feature a wagon roof divided into panels by ribs with bosses. There is a tall chancel screen with a coved canopy, and a well-carved octagonal font was erected by J. O. Greaves and his wife Jane in thanksgiving to the Rev. Canon Sharp of Horbury, as noted in an inscription on the west wall. An elaborately-carved oak font canopy from 1914 was erected by Emily Margaret Harrison in memory of her brother, Alfred William Brown Watson, MA, priest and vicar of Horbury, who was previously chaplain to H. M. Forces and passed away on February 24, 1912, as noted in another inscription on the west wall. The stained glass in the church was created by Kempe.