Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a Gothic Revival style church constructed between 1907 and 1908, with aisles, a vestry, and the west end completed in 1928. Designed by Austin and Paley, it stands on Walney Island, near Barrow in Furness. The church is built of coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings, featuring red tile, slate, and lead roofing.

The building consists of a five-bay nave with lean-to aisles and a south porch; a two-bay chancel with transepts, a lean-to south chapel, and a north vestry. Perpendicular details are evident throughout the design. The aisles have square-headed, mullioned windows of two and three arched lights, with a single buttress and a priest door with a cavetto-moulded arch. The porch has a moulded, pointed arch with a hood mould and an ashlar parapet to a hipped roof. The clerestory features an impost band connecting four-light windows with arched lights and panel tracery under cavetto-moulded, segmental arches. Broad buttresses flank a four-light west window, which has a gable with a quatrefoil, moulded copings, and a cross. The east gable is coped with a round ashlar chimney.

The chancel is slightly lower than the nave. The south transept is buttressed and features a transomed three-light window under a cavetto-moulded arch, topped with a shallow gable and coped parapet. The chapel to the right has a mullioned three-light window to the south and a pointed three-light window to the east, beneath a coped half-gable. Broad buttresses flank the five-light east window, which incorporates a crenellated transom, cusped lights, and a segmental arch with a hood mould. An embattled ashlar parapet is set forward of the coped gable, featuring a slit and a cross. The vestry has two four-light mullioned windows to the east and two small gables to the north, aligned with the buttressed transept. A bellcote rises from the transept parapet.

The interior reveals exposed stonework. The arcades feature cavetto-moulded and chamfered arches that die into ogee-moulded piers. Paired trusses have King and Queen posts and collars. The crossing incorporates cylindrical piers to the west and cavetto/chamfered arches; two arches lead to the south chapel, and a single arch connects to the north transept. The arched chancel ceiling supports a bow-string truss. An octagonal font sits upon colonettes, and a semi-octagonal oak pulpit is set on an ashlar plinth. The seating dates to approximately 1950 and 1958. The church was constructed near the site of a late 17th-century chapel that was demolished in 1852, followed by a replacement chapel built in 1853, which was also subsequently demolished. The need for a larger place of worship arose due to a significant population increase on Walney Island, from around 500 in 1891 to approximately 5,000 in 1903, linked to the expansion of Vickers ironworks.