Church of St Paul

The Church of St Paul at Gulworthy is a parish church constructed in the 1850s, with a license for divine services granted in 1856. It was built as part of the Duke of Bedford’s estate to serve the mining community and surrounding areas. The church is constructed of granite rubble with granite dressings, Hurdwick dressings to windows and doors, and slate roofs featuring raised coped verges to gable ends and ridge tiles. A cross finial adorns the chancel, and a bellcote is situated at the west end of the nave.

The building is cruciform in plan, comprising a combined nave and chancel, a north transept, a north vestry, and a south transept with a south porch at the gable end. It is designed in the Early English style. The nave and chancel feature weathered diagonal buttresses and a plinth. The three-bay nave has chamfered lancet windows to the north and south, with relieving arches, all lattice glazed. There are two lancets at the west end and a gabled bellcote with a bell. The single-bay chancel features a lancet to the south and a triple lancet to the east, the central one being taller. The north vestry, set at an angle to the north transept, has a pitched roof and a lancet to the east, along with a cellar door and a single-pane light below plinth level.

The north transept has a pointed arch doorway with a surround of two chamfered orders and moulded imposts, a relieving arch, a decorative strap-hinged door, a lancet above, and a lancet to the west. The south transept has lancets to the east and west, and a smaller blind lancet in the gable above the single-story gabled porch. The porch has buttresses to the sides, and its pointed arched doorway is of similar design to the north door. The interior of the porch contains stone benches to the sides, and an inner double door sits under a pointed arch of two chamfered orders with run-out stopped impost blocks. The porch roof has principals and collars with a wall plate.

Inside the nave, a three-bay roof features arched braces rising from struts of corbels, crossed at apexes to meet principals, forming an arched scissors truss, with two rows of purlins and a wall plate; this structure extends for one bay over the chancel. Each transept has a two-bay roof with straight scissors trusses and two rows of purlins and a wall plate. The crossing showcases an arched brace carried diagonally from each corner to a central horizontal member, with principals treated similarly above, forming a two-tier roof structure. The nave has moulded rere-arches on corbels to the west windows, and the chancel features a moulded arch on corbels with a continuous hood-mould over the triple lancet, and a rere-arch to the south window. Moulded four-centred arches between the transepts and crossing also spring from large corbels.

The church contains pine pews in the nave and transepts, an octagonal stone font with quatrefoil panels and pyramidal steps to the stem on a roll-moulded base, a panelled wooden pulpit located on a stone base in the crossing, octagonal in shape, with panels of cusped triangles, shafts, and angles; a pair of carved sanctuary chairs in the chancel; and an organ in the north transept, with pinnacles to the sides and a cusped open gable front, a Casson’s Patent organ by “The Positive” Organ Company Ltd of LONDON W.