Roman Church of Our Lady, Help of Christians and St Denis

Church of Our Lady, Help of Christians and St Denis

This is a Roman Catholic church of exceptional architectural importance, constructed in the 19th century and designed by the celebrated architect Joseph Hansom. The building is constructed of rock-faced local grey limestone rubble with ashlar quoins and freestone dressings, under slate roofs.

The church is aligned north-east (ritual east) to south-west, with an apsidal east end. The plan comprises a three-bay chancel and a seven-bay nave, with a square tower flanked by a baptistery and Lady Chapel at the west end.

The principal elevation faces north-west. The chancel is partly concealed by the adjoining presbytery and has three gables above three rounded clerestorey windows. The nave displays 13 spherical clerestorey windows with triangular tracery above a lean-to buttressed aisle. The aisle windows are two-light openings with Decorated tracery and hoodmoulds. A gabled priest's porch at the east end of the aisle has diagonal buttresses. The principal porch is positioned in the sixth bay, featuring diagonal buttresses and a moulded-arched doorway with engaged columns. The tower rises in three stages with a spire, set-back buttresses with statue niches, and tall belfry windows.

The west end is particularly impressive, with a richly-moulded gabled doorway with recessed door and engaged Early English shafts topped with stiff-leaf capitals. A sexafoil window occupies the tympanum above the door, with a statue niche in the gable above. The five-light Geometric Decorated west window has four gabled statue niches below its sill.

The interior retains exceptional architectural detail. The nave arcades have quatrefoil piers with naturalistic foliage-carved capitals, each different, supporting double-chamfered arches. The arch-braced nave roof is carried on moulded corbels. The lean-to aisle roof has moulded ribs and plastered panels with carved and moulded corbels. The south arcade is lower than the north, with a flat roof on timber brackets and paired lancet windows. Above runs an Early English style triforium with paired pointed-arched openings featuring pierced parapets with quatrefoil motifs.

The sanctuary contains a doorway to the south leading to the former nuns' choir. On the north side stands the nuns' altar, dedicated to St Dominic, with figurative altar front, gabled statue niche and crocketed pinnacles to the reredos. The sanctuary walls are articulated by three stages of blind Early English arcading with crocketed gables and cornices. A timber vaulted roof on stone shafts covers the sanctuary. At the eastern end of each aisle is an altar: to the north dedicated to St Joseph, and to the south to the Sacred Heart.

The nave and aisles contain original moveable pews. Off the south aisle is a series of confessionals, one with a fireplace, featuring original part-glazed timber doors. The Lady Chapel, at the west end of the south aisle, is separated from the nave by an arcade of two Early English columns and a stone screen, rising through two storeys. Off the west end of the north aisle is an octagonal baptistery of full height with a vaulted ceiling of moulded ribs springing from foliate capitals on attached shafts.

The base of the tower is supported on four columns with two rows of three subsidiary columns between, supporting stone vaulting decorated with geometric foliate carving and a stone balustrade to the organ loft above. A doorway in the south aisle gives access to a stair serving the triforium and the organ lofts of both the church and the nuns' choir. The nuns' choir retains its seating and timber gallery with blind arcading and rails to the organ loft.

The church is exceptionally complete in its stone fittings, most designed by Joseph Hansom and contemporary with the building. The sanctuary includes a richly-carved reredos with crocketed pinnacles, stepped gables and statue niches containing images of Our Lady and St Denis. The High Altar is carved with the Last Supper. The subsidiary altars and Lady Chapel also feature carved reredoses and statuary. The pulpit is a stone drum design, richly carved with piercing and geometric details and variously-coloured marble shafts. The altar rails are painted metal with bright colours, floral and foliate motifs and extensive scrolling. The font, dated 1881 and designed by Joseph S Hansom, is sexafoil in form, executed in red marble on six stocky shafts with carved inscriptions. Stained glass includes east and west windows by the Hardman Company.