Church of St Begh

Church of St Begh

A Roman Catholic church built between 1865 and 1868, designed by E W Pugin, the son of the renowned architect A.W.N. Pugin. The building is constructed of rock-faced coursed sandstone with red sandstone ashlar dressings, with round windows featuring alternating red and grey stone.

The church comprises a nave and apsidal chancel beneath a single roof of flat clay tiles in a variegated pattern, flanked by aisles on each side that extend as side chapels to the beginning of the apse. A projecting vestry with offices stands on the north side.

Exterior

The shallow chancel forms a three-sided apse with a hipped roof and buttresses. Three large pointed arch windows with simple tracery are flanked by projecting buttresses and steeply pointed pediments. Small quatrefoil windows appear both above the main windows and as decoration below. Clerestorey windows are also quatrefoil in form. The chancel has two narrow round-arched windows to each side at clerestorey height, and two more on the side chapels. Each side chapel features a circular window in the gable end beside the chancel.

To the north, between the side chapel and aisle, sits a two-storey vestry and offices with three rectangular windows under a pitched roof and a single storey extension to the outer gable end. The north aisle has three windows and the south aisle four, each with geometric tracery somewhat truncated at the base, positioned between prominent buttresses.

The west front displays a shallow flight of five steps leading to a central wooden double door with iron hinges and overlight, set within a pointed arch doorway. A quatrefoil decorative plate appears to each side, with narrow lanceolate windows above, the central one containing geometric tracery. Strong buttresses with offsets flank the entrance. Both aisles feature pointed arched windows with tracery on the west front.

Interior

The shallow semi-circular chancel contains three stained glass windows and elaborately cusped and crocketted blind arcading executed in white marble with black marble shafts, beneath which are carved wooden benches. The walls are painted white and the vaulted ceiling features decorative painted panels. A pulpit occupies the centre, with a wooden reading desk to the left and a tabernacle to the right. An illuminated sign bearing the inscription "LUX LUCET IN TENEBRIS" hangs above.

The left side chapel features original carved wooden doors reset in modern frames, a double arched opening to the chancel, a late 20th-century altar, a marble font, a decorated stained glass rose window, and decorated painted walls and ceiling. The right chapel, serving as the Lady Chapel, contains a late 20th-century altar, a decorated painted ceiling, a stained glass rose window, and a double arched opening to the chancel.

The nave features a stepped scissor truss roof rising from arcade columns that alternate between round and octagonal forms with angular bases and capitals. These columns support pointed arches of the arcade and the aisles, with both banded in red and pale grey stone. Pine and wrought iron benches fill the nave, and the former altar rail of painted wrought iron now serves as the front of the foremost pews. The aisles contain similar pews and a mono-pitched ceiling. Above the door to the vestry in the north aisle is a former choir gallery, now blocked. The vestry contains fitted wooden cupboards and retains fixings for a pulpit that formerly stood on a column to the left side of the nave.

At the west end, a late 20th-century choir structure in wood is raised above a narthex of glass and wood panels.