Church of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This church was constructed in 1888 to the designs of J A Chatwin, with alterations and extensions carried out in the 20th century. It is built of brick with limestone dressings and covered by a mixture of clay-tiled and slate roofs.

The church is oriented west to east and is sited prominently at the corner of Bearwood Road and St Mary's Road. It is designed in the early English gothic revival style. The exterior features tall lancet windows with simple stone banding and brick laid in Flemish bond. The east elevation displays a large projecting gable with tripartite lancet windows beneath continuous stone hood moulding. Shallow angle buttresses capped with stone project from the walls. A 20th-century former vestry is located to the north.

The south elevation features a square-plan, incomplete tower at the east end, with the nave and south aisle projecting westward. The tower is topped with a brick belfry. The long west-east range has four pairs of lancet windows with trefoil heads at clerestory level, with a similar arrangement on the lean-to south aisle below. A small entrance porch with an apse to its rear (north) is situated at the very west end. The west elevation includes a large tracery window above the apse with stone hood mould and a brick parapet topped with a stone cross finial. The north elevation mirrors the south, with nave and north aisle containing pairs of windows. A 20th-century vestry with flat-roofed entrance is positioned to the east.

Internally, the nave is a tall, lofty space. The aisle arcades feature squat limestone columns with moulded capitals supporting gothic brick arches with stone moulding above. The stone banding used externally continues within the nave as a pair of stone bands running at clerestory level and across the aisles. Nineteenth-century floor tiling is present in both the nave and chancel. The nave contains fixed bench pews with plain, chamfered ends. Above the nave, a crown-post roof has tie and collar beams with upper braces; the trusses are supported by stone corbels. The chancel roof employs scissor brace construction.

The tall gothic chancel arch in stone is supported by clustered piers. The chancel features an Arts and Crafts altar table and reredos by H W Hobbiss, with relief sculptures of angels facing the monogram of Christ; the surrounding decorative work is by sculptors Pancheri and Hack. The chancel is panelled and contains a carved foliate frieze. A small stone piscina with trefoil arch stands to the south of the altar. A wrought iron altar rail and late-19th-century stone pulpit with tracery detail are also present. The tripartite lancet windows above the altar contain stained glass by Charles Kempe, installed in 1904 in memory of soap factory owner George Adkins and his wife Anne. The organ is positioned on the south wall of the chancel.

The aisles contain further pews with simple stained glass in the quatrefoil tracery windows. The south aisle contains stained glass at its east end by Thomas W Camm, commemorating Reverend Henry Tilley, installed in December 1905. The south aisle leads to the unfinished tower at the south-east end, containing a vestry with original inbuilt storage featuring panelled doors on the north wall. The north aisle leads to the 20th-century vestry extension, now containing a kitchen and storage room.

At the west end, a small apse contains the baptistery with fixed timber seating installed in the late 20th century around the perimeter, surrounding an octagonal marble font supported by four columns. The baptistery walls contain four small stained-glass windows installed in 1910 and inscribed with a plaque noting they were "Subscribed for by the Sunday School Teachers & Scholars". The glass is by Florence Camm, daughter of Thomas W Camm. A small south porch adjacent to the baptistery has a scissor brace roof structure mirroring the chancel and serves as the main entrance to the church.

A door from the west end of the north aisle leads to an additional small porch with an external door featuring large decorative iron straps. This porch provides access to the former Sunday School, which is not included in the listing.