Roman Catholic Church of St Mary

Roman Catholic Church of St Mary

A Roman Catholic church built in 1843-44, designed by A W N Pugin in a 13th-century pointed style. The church is constructed of cut and squared local sandstone under slate roofs.

The building comprises an aisled nave of five bays, a chancel with flanking chapels, a sacristy to the north, a west tower with small spire, and a south porch. The roof line breaks between the nave and aisles, with the chancel set at a lower height. All roofs feature coped verges, triangular kneelers, and cross finials.

The west tower is relatively plain, divided into two stages. The west wall has a low window of three lights with a trefoil, whilst the upper stage belfry windows are of two lights on each face. The broach spire above rises in two tiers of lucarnes placed in alternate faces and is topped by a finial with weathervane. The south porch has a gabled roof, short angled buttresses, and an entrance with a moulded, two-centred surround.

The aisle windows are of two lights with cusped, ogee heads and tracery. A doorway is positioned at the east end of the south aisle. The east chancel window contains three lights with decorated tracery, and a small quatrefoil appears in the gable apex of the nave. The projecting north vestry has a large stack with a cowl.

Inside, the nave features a pointed arcade with octagonal piers of exposed sandstone, and principal rafters rising from stone corbels. The aisles are low with simple lean-to roofs. The south chapel, now used as the baptistery, has an external door and unusually for a 19th-century church, a squint, suggesting it was probably originally designed as a family chapel. The Lady Chapel in the north aisle has been enriched with alabaster and marble fixtures and surfaces, possibly in the 1920s when the organ was installed and several stained glass windows added. The chancel features an elaborate scissor-braced roof. Both nave and chancel roofs display stencilled schemes, though it is unclear whether these are original; small preserved areas on the south wall and chancel window jamb may reflect an original or early decorative scheme.

The high altar is very simple with deeply inset quatrefoils, whilst the reredos also features quatrefoils. A single stone sedile with a cusped head, linked to a piscina, is set in the south chancel wall. The original font is a large bowl of simple design, probably from the Myers workshop. The bench seating appears to date from the mid-20th century, and the tiled floors in the Lady Chapel and chancel are possibly by Minton. The stained glass is largely early 20th-century work by Hardman of Birmingham, including a First World War memorial window in the west. Of three windows originally given to the church by Pugin, either to his design or by Wailes, only one light now survives, incorporated in the Lady Chapel window. Two memorials in the chancel floor were designed by Pugin and made by Hardman. A memorial to the Whitgreave family, also by Hardman, is positioned in the north aisle wall near the Lady Chapel. Statuary includes a Crucifix beneath a canopy in the south chapel, said to have come from the Black Ladies convent, and a Virgin and Child in the Lady Chapel, said to be of 17th-century date and a gift of Pugin.

Outside the south porch stands a stone pillar piscina, possibly of 12th-century date, said to have come from White Ladies, Boscobel in Shropshire.