Church Of Our Lady Of Mount Carmel (Roman Catholic)

Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Roman Catholic)

A church completed in 1834 by Thomas Rickman, with mid-20th century alterations and additions. The building is constructed of sandstone ashlar, partly stuccoed, with slate roofs featuring bracketed eaves and gable-end parapets with kneelers. The plan comprises a west tower with open porch, a four-bay nave with transepts, and a two-bay chancel. The architectural style blends Early English and Perpendicular influences without adopting any single dominant idiom.

The west tower rises in two stages with string courses and buttresses featuring offsets, angled at the west corners. The west, north and south elevations display tall pointed arches of two chamfered orders with hood moulds leading into an open porch beneath a quadripartite vault. Above these archways sits a rose window in the west elevation and narrow rectangular openings in the side elevations. The bell chamber openings are large and rectangular with hollow chamfered edges, divided by a mullion and transom into four cusped ogee-arched louvred lights. An embattled parapet with corner pinnacles crowns the tower.

The nave features a chamfered plinth and moulded plinth band, with buttresses of offset design at bay divisions and angled at the west and transept ends. The west end has two lancets flanking the tower. Within the porch is a pointed doorway with a square head and blind tracery in the spandrels, largely restored. The side elevations display cusped lancets beneath square heads, while a 4-centred archway with double doors appears at the west end of the north elevation.

Each transept is a single bay with cusped lancets beneath square heads in their west elevations (the south transept's being blind). The south transept gable end has three lancets grouped beneath a pointed head and a louvred opening above in the apex. Both transepts have single-storey mid-20th century additions to their west side elevations with gable-end parapets above rectangular lights and doors.

The chancel features angled buttresses with offsets at the east end. Its 3-light east window has a sill string and louvred opening above in the apex, with rose windows in each side elevation. The north side rose window and the north end and east side of the north transept are obscured by a later addition of no special architectural interest. A door with cambered head opens in the south elevation of the chancel.

The interior is plastered throughout with painted decoration. At the west end of the nave stands a 4-centred archway of two chamfered orders, its inner order supported on corbels. The jambs are pierced with a lower rectangular opening and upper cusped lancets. The chancel and transepts feature plaster quasi-vaulting with thin ribs and large bosses. The nave is spanned by truncated queen strut trusses with trefoil detailing. All windows have hood moulds with returns. A gallery at the west end displays blind cusped pointed arcading.

This modest and simply detailed church is of particular interest as it shares more in common with contemporary Commissioners type churches than with the more archaeologically accurate examples of Rickman's work.