Church Of St Paul

Church of St Paul, Alverthorpe

Parish church of 1823-25 by Peter Atkinson junior, a York architect (1776-1843). The church was refurbished in the 1840s and underwent alterations in the late 20th century. It cost £8,082 and was funded under the 1818 Church Building Act, which enabled the construction of new Anglican churches in growing industrial districts where worship facilities were scarce. Atkinson was responsible for 16 churches or enlargements during this notable late Georgian campaign.

The church is built of ashlar sandstone with a slate roof featuring crested ridge tiles. It follows the non-archaeological Perpendicular style characteristic of early 19th-century church building. The plan comprises a wide nave with a west tower, short chancel, and east vestry.

The three-stage tower has angle buttresses and an embattled parapet on notional machicolations. The lower stage incorporates the porch, which has a Tudor-arched west doorway with square label and roundels to the spandrels. The west window is 5-light, positioned below 3-light windows on the middle stage and pairs of 2-light upper-stage openings with louvres. The wide, high nave was evidently designed to accommodate a 3-sided gallery and comprises 6 buttressed bays with octagonal corner turrets and a plain parapet. The three-light windows have transoms. In the west wall, flanking the tower, are hollow-chamfered doorways positioned below gallery windows. In the east wall are blind windows flanking the diminutive chancel, which has a 4-light east window, angle buttresses, and turrets with pinnacles. The nave gable contains 3 stepped pointed windows. The vestry has two 2-light east windows with Y-tracery and hollow-chamfered doorways in the north and south walls. The church stands in a large, wooded churchyard.

The very broad nave roof features cambered tie beams on corbelled brackets, divided into large panels by axial ribs and enriched by ridge bosses. Two iron ventilators are incorporated in the eastern bay. The chancel arch is narrow with thin attached shafts. The walls are plastered. The nave has a decorative tile floor with raised floorboards below pews, while the sanctuary contains a richer tile floor including encaustic tiles. The tower base incorporates two gallery stone stairways with solid balustrades and doorways in stone surrounds leading to a shallow-vaulted passage beneath the gallery. The crypt is now used for parish rooms.

The 5-bay west gallery is carried on timber posts with Tudor arches and has a panelled front, which was altered when the north and south galleries were removed. A small octagonal font with Gothic tracery on the stem dates to the 1820s. The benches, with panelled square ends and backs, and the gallery benches, are probably contemporary with the font. Other furnishings date to the late 19th century. The octagonal wooden pulpit has painted Biblical scenes above a base with buttresses and elaborate tracery. The chancel area was extended in the late 19th century by erecting a 3-sided screen at the east end of the nave, featuring a panelled dado and main lights with intricate open tracery below a simple cornice surmounted by winged angels. The choir stalls have shaped ends and open-arcaded frontals. The communion rails are wooden, supported on twisted iron uprights with scrolled brackets.