Church Houses Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary, located in Church Houses, was built in 1831, with a baptistry added during restorations from 1907 to 1914. It was designed by William Stonehouse, with further restoration and extension by Temple Moore. The church features herringbone-tooled sandstone on a chamfered plinth to the south, and roughly tooled stone to the north, with tooled and ashlar dressings, and a slate roof.

The structure includes a west baptistry, vestry, and porch, along with a bellcote, and has a 5-bay nave and chancel. The west end has a shallow projection at the center, resting on a tall chamfered plinth and topped with a pent roof, which contains paired square-headed lights. Similar windows are found on the north and south sides. The gable-end bellcote features angle turrets with pyramidal caps. The baptistry projects forward from the nave and has a shouldered opening to the south beneath a flat hoodmould. Inside, double board doors are recessed, creating a porch within the building. The door surround is square-headed and shouldered, with a chamfered and quoined design, and a segmental relieving arch made of voussoirs.

The nave has two windows on both sides, featuring paired trefoil-headed lights with flat hoodmoulds on the south side. There are offset buttresses to the east. The chancel has a narrow, shouldered priest's door in a quoined surround on the south side, flanked by two-light windows with curvilinear tracery beneath flat stopped hoodmoulds. On the north side, there is a window with three cusped lights in a quoined surround. The east end has dwarf clasping buttresses and a pointed window with three lights and curvilinear tracery beneath a stopped hoodmould. All parts of the church have a cavetto-moulded eaves course, and the window surrounds and mullions are chamfered. The gables are coped, with a gable cross on the east end.

Inside, the church features a tall pointed baptistry arch with irregularly quoined jambs, a low segmental chancel arch with a roll hoodmould on attached columns, and imposts that are cavetto-moulded on the underside. The nave has a king-post roof, while the chancel boasts a barrel-vaulted ceiling.