Church Of St Agatha

Church of St. Agatha

Parish church built in 1844-5 by Thomas Penson on a medieval site, with further work carried out in 1879. The building is constructed from regularly coursed and dressed carboniferous limestone with yellow brick and yellow sandstone dressings. The roofs are of graded slate with high coped verges and toothed decoration to the gables. The church is designed in the Neo-Norman style and comprises a nave, chancel, north-west tower with porch beneath, and south vestry.

The tower is in four stages surmounted by a pyramidal spire with fishscale tile roof. It has clasping corner buttresses with nook-shafts to the bottom three stages and nook-shaft only to the belfry. Blind round-arched arcading decorates the tower: two bays to the bottom stage, three bays to the second stage, and one bay to the third stage. All arches are embellished with ringed shafts, carved capitals, and chevron decoration to the heads; some contain windows. A dog-tooth band separates the second and third stages. The belfry features twin pointed openings within a larger semi-circular opening, with elaborate zig-zag decoration to the arches and a corbel table with carved human heads. The spire is fitted with gabled lucarnes containing round-headed windows and a weathervane. The entrance on the east side passes through a round-headed arch with two bands of zig-zag decoration and one order of ring-shafts supporting carved capitals.

The nave is buttressed in seven bays with corner buttresses carried up to form miniature corner turrets with ring-shafts to the angles. It has a plain corbel table and tall round-arched windows with zig-zag decoration, carved capitals, and ring-shafts linked by continuous hoodmould. The south side features a narrow round-headed doorway in the second bay from the west. The fifth bay has a gable breaking the eaves with a turret similar to the corner buttresses and blind round-headed windows to either side of the ridge. The gabled vestry below contains three intersecting round-headed arches with the outer lights blind, a blind round-headed window above, and an entrance through a round-headed doorway on the east, with a lean-to on the west. The elaborately detailed west front has three intersecting round-headed arches with four windows, each with zig-zag decoration, and two blind round-headed arches above. A chamfered string course below the intersecting arches has a corbel table with carved human heads. Nook-shafts carried down from the outer shafts of the outer windows frame a slightly recessed round-headed doorway, which has three bands of carved decoration to the arch and one order of ringed shafts. Pairs of round-headed windows are positioned to the left and right.

The chancel has round-headed windows on the north and south sides. The east wall features a corbel table and a window of five round-headed lights. Below this is a blind arcade of ten small round-headed arches with plain shafts, carved capitals, and zig-zag decoration to the soffits. A blind round-headed window in the gable is topped with a Celtic cross at the apex.

The interior has an arch-braced collar beam roof with king-posts and corbelled responds in six bays to the nave and two bays to the chancel. A west gallery, approached through a round-headed doorway on the north, features round-arched blind arcading and is supported on two cast-iron columns painted to resemble wood, with neo-Norman capitals. The round-headed chancel arch has tall ringed nook-shafts with carved decoration to the extrados and intrados and a yellow brick hoodmould. Blind round-headed arcades run in six bays to the north and south sides of the chancel and in five bays to the east wall. Zig-zag decoration appears on window heads and ringed nook-shafts in both nave and chancel, most elaborate at the west end. A round-headed doorway provides access to the vestry.

The fittings and furnishings are of late 19th century or later date and include a Perpendicular-style stone pulpit of 1878, a small octagonal 19th-century font, and stained glass. The east window was designed by William Wailes in 1855. Other windows date from the 1860s except for two early 20th-century windows in the nave north wall.

The church contains 18th-century brasses fixed to the west wall, along with 18th- and 19th-century wall tablets and memorials from the former church displayed in the gallery and tower. The tower holds the massive pendulum of a clock made by local inventor Richard Roberts. A wooden tablet above the west doorway commemorates the rebuilding of the church in 1844.