Roman Catholic Church of St Michael the Archangel, boundary walls, gate piers and gates

Roman Catholic Church of St Michael the Archangel

This Catholic chapel likely incorporates the remains of a late 17th-century Mass House but was substantially rebuilt between 1798 and 1806, with alterations and extensions added throughout the 19th century and internal remodelling carried out during the 20th and 21st centuries.

The chapel is constructed of coursed gritstone with ashlar dressings and a stone slate roof. It has a rectangular footprint oriented on a roughly north-south axis, with the chancel at the north end (liturgical east) and the nave to the south. A small sacristy on the east side links the chapel with the adjoining presbytery.

The chapel comprises four bays arranged as a three-bay nave with a chancel bay beneath a pitched roof. The principal south-facing elevation features a late 19th-century bellcote surmounting a coped gable with moulded kneelers. Below this is a large circular window set within a heavily moulded and deeply recessed frame, with curved hoodmoulds with stops. Beneath the window is a reed moulded doorcase with a deep cornice supported on scroll brackets and a shallow dripmould above 20th-century plank doors.

The nave exterior has a moulded plinth, deeply rusticated projecting quoins, and a projecting eaves band. Both flanking sides feature windows with depressed semi-circular heads and heavily moulded, deeply recessed surrounds with plain impost blocks and keystones beneath curved hoodmoulds with stops. The southernmost windows on each side contain multiple panes of glass divided by timber glazing bars. The northernmost nave window on the west elevation has carved stone Y-tracery with trefoil heads, while the adjacent window on the east side has been internalised within an early 20th-century sacristy.

The chancel is set slightly back from the nave on both sides. Its north elevation contains a three-light window with curvilinear tracery set within a gothic arched opening, beneath an arched dripmould with stops. On either flank of the chancel are windows set within flat, round-arched surrounds with plain imposts and keystones, together with small lancets.

The adjoining sacristy is a single bay beneath a pitched roof, with two-over-two sash windows featuring horns to both north and south elevations.

Internally, the chapel is entered through a south-facing interior porch beneath an inserted timber gallery, both of panelled timber. The church interior is plainly plastered with low-level timber panelling and queen post trusses with curved spandrels. The chancel lies beyond a pointed chancel arch and contains a modern stone altar, timber reredos, pulpit and lectern, all with stylised carved columns. The pews are modern replacements.

The circular south window contains mid 20th-century stained glass commemorating the Padley Martyrs, Nicholas Garlic and Robert Ludlam. The chancel windows and centre nave windows feature 19th- and early 20th-century stained glass dedicated to various parishioners. The late 19th-century west window of the nave is by Joseph Clarke of Dublin.

The sacristy is accessed through a modern timber door at the north end of the nave. It contains an internalised eight-pane nave window with the same heavily moulded surrounds as those on the exterior, and a long multipaned window to the presbytery on the opposite wall. The south-facing sacristy window is set within a deep, panelled architrave with shutters and a convex sill.

Boundary walls, gate piers and gates front the chapel grounds in coursed gritstone with half-round coping. Ashlar gate piers are topped with pyramidal capstones. The serpentine east section of wall projects towards Main Road. The wrought iron front gates feature bowed tops and decorative scroll detailing. Boundary walls to the west of the chapel are of the same construction, with irregularly coursed stone to the lower sections. A stepped south return links to the west side of the chapel with a pair of barred iron gates.