Parish Church Of St Luke

Parish Church of St Luke

This parish church was designed by A Blomfield and built in 1863 in the Geometric Decorated style. It is constructed of local grey uncoursed limestone rubble with freestone dressings, some banded with limestone, and slate roofs. The church underwent restoration following fire damage in 1964.

The plan comprises a nave with a chancel featuring a polygonal apse, five-bay north and south aisles, a north-west tower that incorporates a porch, a west end narthex, and a church hall at the east end positioned at right-angles to the nave and linked to the main building.

The exterior is notably robust and unconventional, particularly at the west end. The west window of the nave is a two-light design with a traceried roundel above and a common hoodmould. The west end narthex, situated above a battered basement level, is pierced by two-light windows within an arcade supported on columns bearing carved capitals. Access to the narthex is via steps and a porch on the south side or through the tower on the north side. The tower rises in three stages, culminating in an octagonal belfry stage and a stone spire with lucarnes. On the north side of the tower, steps lead up to an open arcaded four-sided porch with a pyramidal slate roof, its arcade featuring cylindrical columns with carved capitals and paired plank doors. The north and south aisles display five gabled bays; the north aisle, forming the show front, is distinguished by buttresses supporting detached columns with carved capitals and carved symbols of the evangelists. A north-east gabled porch features a moulded two-centred arched doorway with a carved niche in the gable. The polygonal east end is punctuated by tall one-light windows with traceried heads. A link block containing a trefoil-headed doorway at the north-east provides access to the gable-ended hall, which features a stack with stone shaft at its south end and a ribbon of six stone mullioned windows beneath a sexafoil roundel with common voussoirs.

The interior provides an excellent example of late 19th-century enriched church design, remarkably complete despite some painted decoration being restored after the 1964 fire. A moulded chancel arch springs from short columns with carved angel corbels and stiff-leaf capitals. The five-bay arcade features unusually short cast-iron columns set on deep plinths, each column displaying bead-moulded capitals and double-chamfered arches. The nave is roofed with a six-bay ceiled keeled wagon roof with moulded ribs springing from corbels. The aisles are roofed in bays, each consisting of a keeled ceiled wagon with chamfered ribs. The chancel is similarly roofed with a keeled ceiled wagon featuring moulded ribs that form panels, all lavishly painted in 1870 by Heaton Butler and Bayne. The chancel and sanctuary walls are entirely covered with stencil and freehand paintings, with remains of repaired sgraffito work and mosaic roundels. A gabled stone reredos displays a carved scene in deep relief depicting the Last Supper. The interior includes good floor tiling, sedilia, a brass and wrought upper sanctuary rail, and a local marble chancel screen featuring blind white Italian marble arcading with brass rails and gates. An alabaster and local marble drum pulpit with pierced traceried openings stands in the sanctuary. The nave fittings include a High Victorian font raised on marble paving, a square form with corner shafts and stone inlaid with marble bearing carved symbols in roundels. A west end gallery is supported on slender iron columns and has a stout timber front with diagonal bracing.

The stained glass includes a fine west window by Heaton Butler and Bayne, with sanctuary windows also attributed to the same firm. A small window by the Kempe firm is located in the narthex.