Church of the Immaculate Conception

Church of the Immaculate Conception

A Catholic church built in 1846 by Joseph Aloysius Hansom, with extensions added in 1864 and 1966. The building is constructed of regularly coursed coal measures sandstone with ashlar gritstone dressings, rising from a diagonal plinth. It features coped gables with cross finials and Welsh slated roofs throughout.

The church comprises a three-stage tower with broach spire, a single-stage projecting tower stair tower, a nave with south nave porch, a chancel with north and south chancel chapels, and a 1964 extension to the chancel chapel.

The tower displays stepped clasping buttresses with set-offs, moulded stringcourse linking lancet buttresses, and moulded bandcourses delineating the stages. Coupled pointed arched Early English style belfry lights sit below a moulded cornice from which the octagonal spire rises. The spire features decorative diagonal masonry bands and lucarnes incorporating clock faces, topped with cross finials. The south face contains a niche with Decorated style surround and a statue of the Virgin. A projecting single-storey tower for the tower stair has a stepped flagged roof. A tall lancet to the west tower wall at first-stage level has a deeply moulded surround below a hoodmould with foliage stops. Lancets to the ground floor sit beneath a continuous string serving as a hoodmould. The south nave porch is gabled with diagonal buttresses, a coped gable with cross finial, and a tripartite niche to the gable apex containing figures of the Virgin and attendant angels. A single doorway with moulded pointed arch sits beneath a hoodmould with head stop.

The nave comprises five bays with stepped diagonal buttresses to the west end and similar buttresses delineating each bay. Steeply pointed arched two-light windows within deeply recessed and moulded surrounds feature moulded stringcourse below cills and hoodmoulds with head stops. A chamfered eaves band is carried on a corbel table. The chancel south chapel has stepped diagonal buttresses and four linked shallow two-light windows with trefoil heads to the lights supporting quatrefoils, each with hoodmoulds featuring carved stops. A single three-light pointed arched window with simple tracery lights the east end. The chancel features a simplified corbel table, diagonal buttresses, and a three-light window with deeply recessed and moulded surround. A moulded stringcourse steps up beneath cill level. The chancel south chapel displays seven linked single lights, each a cusped lancet beneath a hoodmould, the moulding linked at the capitals of intermediate attached shafts, with diagonal buttresses to the north-east corner. The 1864 vestry to the north of the chapel has a plain chamfered plinth and three two-light cross windows with trefoil heads to each light. Taller cross windows light the north gable, with a diagonal projecting stack separating lancets in the gable apex and terminating in a circular stone chimney. A vestry doorway to the west of the extension is now blocked and used as a window. A plain flat-roofed extension adjoins the nave north wall.

The interior features a roof carried on elaborate corbels supporting roof posts. A tall Early English style chancel arch is present, alongside an alabaster reredos dated 1904 with a contemporary reredos of which the upper part dates to 1904. The chancel north chapel contains a diminutive hammer beam roof.