Church Of St Katherine

Church of St Katherine, Rowsley

Parish church built in 1855 by Salvin Junior, with an extension added in 1859. The building is designed in the Neo-Norman style and constructed from coursed squared and rock-faced sandstone with ashlar detailing. It features a plain tile roof with decorative ridge cresting and stone coped gables topped with cross finials.

The church comprises a nave and north aisle with an east chapel, south porch, chancel, vestry and organ chamber. A chamfered plinth runs around the base. The gabled north aisle is partly engaged with the nave. The north side consists of three bays separated by pilaster buttresses with bracket corbels beneath the eaves. Each bay contains a two-light window with round-arched lights divided by a colonnette with scalloped capital. At the north east stands a gabled vestry with a plain chamfered round-arched doorway to the west. The west end of the north aisle has a plainly chamfered round-arched window, and to the east a pair of round-arched windows with continuous hoodmould featuring headstops.

The west wall of the nave displays two tall round-arched windows flanking a buttress corbelled out above to support a gabled double bellcote with a colonnette having a cushion capital. The south side of the nave mirrors the north with three windows set in bays divided by pilaster buttresses and bracketed corbels. Between the first two bays projects a gabled porch with a round-arched entrance flanked by colonnettes and two orders of moulding to the arch. A stepped triplet of blind round-arches decorates the gable. The porch is entered through a pair of plank doors with scrolled iron hinges. Either side of the porch are two plainly chamfered round-arched windows. To the east stands a partly engaged gabled south vestry with a chimney stack rising from the pitch of the east gable, a plain chamfered round-arched doorway to the south with studded plank door, a single round-arched window to the east, and above it a gabled wooden bellcote on brackets.

The chancel is fitted with clasping angle buttresses and corbel brackets beneath the eaves. It has one plainly chamfered round-arched window to the north and south. The main east window consists of three round-arched lights with moulded arches and colonnettes with scalloped capitals. A wheel window above features divisions resembling stumpy columns. The doorway within the south porch has a moulded round arch on colonnettes with cushion capitals and a studded plank door with decorative iron hinges.

Interior

The interior features a low three-bay north arcade with circular piers and semi-circular responds, scalloped capitals and roll-moulded round arches of two orders. The chancel arch is stilted and semi-circular with semi-circular responds and crocket capitals, the moulded arch decorated with chevron. Between the chancel and north chapel runs a two-bay arcade with round arches on a square pier set with marble colonnettes. Each bay is subdivided by two round arches on a marble column, these arches adorned with a serrated demi-circle motif. Plain round arches connect the north aisle to the north chapel and the chancel to the organ chamber. The nave roof features arched principal trusses resting on stone corbels. The chancel's south window has a lowered sill with an adjoining arch forming the sedilia. The sanctuary is tiled with a mosaic dado to the east wall.

The stone pulpit in the nave has a square base and a superstructure with curved projections and a marble colonnette at the angle supporting the lectern. A Neo-Norman ashlar font with wooden cover stands in the church. Nineteenth-century Gothic choir stalls are present, along with sturdy twentieth-century communion rails. A brass eagle lectern dates to around 1906. The north aisle contains an Anglo-Saxon cross head dated to the mid-ninth century and a stone tablet inscribed in excellent script recording a charity left by Rachael Ashbourn in the eighteenth century.

The north east chapel features a tiled floor and a richly carved Decorated style tomb chest with the recumbent effigies of Lady John Manners, who died in 1859, and her daughter. The exceptionally well-carved effigies are signed by W Calder Marshall RA, London 1862. The chapel is enclosed by wrought iron gates and screen. The church contains various nineteenth-century stained glass windows throughout.