Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Windermere

An Anglican church built in slatestone with sandstone dressings and slate roofs. The building began as a modest chapel in 1848. A south aisle was added in 1852 and a north aisle in 1857, both designed by J.S. Crowther. Crowther also added a western extension to the nave in 1861 and a north transept in 1871. The most significant phase of development came in 1881-82 when the well-respected Lancaster-based architects Paley & Austin designed the chancel, tower and west end. The church was substantially re-roofed and refurbished following a serious fire in 1988, with the interior re-ordered in 2004 by Paul Grout Architects.

The plan is rectangular with a nave, chancel, north and south aisles, north and south transepts, a choir vestry, vestry, north and south porches and a tower above the crossing.

The exterior is dominated by a large three-stage tower with a projecting rectangular south east stair turret rising above the crossing. The lower stage has buttresses with set-offs flush with the east and west faces and pairs of two-light transomed north and south windows. The mid-stage features north and east facing lozenge-shaped frames to its clock faces and two round-arched lancet windows to the east and west faces. The upper stage has two-light belfry windows flanked by blind arches and a parapet decorated with a quatrefoil frieze. The east end features a five-light Decorated style window with tracery, beneath which are two chamfered string courses with a blind window between them, all surrounded by slate. The gable is topped with a small stone cross. The north aisle has two-light Geometric Decorated style windows and a gabled porch with nook shafts. The north transept has a three-light intersecting traceried window with a small cross above, and an adjoining single-storey apsidal vestry with ogee-headed door and window surrounds. The south aisle has a mix of lancet and plate-traceried windows with a gabled porch featuring honeycomb-cut roof slates and a recessed outer door in a splayed doorway. The south transept has blind arcading containing four small round-headed slit windows. The west elevation has three buttressed gables topped by small stone crosses, with a four-light Decorated window and two-light windows with decorated tracery to the adjacent aisles.

The interior includes a chancel with a moulded arch on short clustered columns with bell capitals on corbels. The stained glass east window is by Burlisson and Grylls. The chancel's south wall has blind ogee-arched windows and the roof is a boarded painted wagon roof divided into panels by moulded ribs. The western arch into the crossing fades into the responds with a flat-panelled timber roof above. Two-bay arcades lead into the transepts with tall parclosed screens. The north transept has been subdivided to provide storeroom and toilet facilities. The south and north arcades are of seven bays; those to the south have round arches on moulded capitals, those to the north have pointed arches on moulded capitals of a different design. The nave has a canted and boarded roof with roof lights. Both aisles have been reordered and are separated from the nave by modern glass partitioning. The south aisle now contains a kitchen, meeting room and WC, while the north aisle contains the parish office, reception, draught lobby and lounge area. The choir stalls have poppyhead finials and pierced friezes to the back of the seats and frontals. The polygonal timber pulpit matches the choirstalls and has a frieze of pierced tracery beneath a miniature wooden balustrade below the cornice. The font has a square bowl decorated with stiff-leaf carving on an octagonal stem with black marble corner shafts.

Internal alterations involving the removal of an alabaster reredos took place in 1945. Following the 1988 fire, the church was refurbished by Michael Bottomley of Kendal and rededicated in 1990. The 2004 re-ordering by Paul Grout Architects involved re-design of the chancel, installation of multi-purpose rooms in the south aisle, and replacement of pews.