Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This is a substantial Gothic Revival church built on the site of an earlier parish church in Dalton in Furness. Constructed between 1882 and 1885, it was designed by the architects Paley and Austin. The building is constructed of snecked red sandstone with ashlar dressings and has a graduated green slate roof.

The church comprises a 6-bay nave with separately roofed aisles, a 2-bay chancel with a north vestry and south chapel, and a 3-stage tower positioned over the west end of the nave. North and south porches provide access. The design employs Decorated tracery characteristic of the Gothic Revival style. Notable exterior features include a chamfered plinth, iron gutter brackets, and chequerwork to the parapets over the porches and over the east and west windows. Roll-moulded copings finish the gables and parapets.

The south aisle has offset buttresses to its east end and between two pairs of 4-light windows with differing tracery, pointed arches and hoodmoulds. The south porch is hexagonal and vaulted, with buttresses at each angle, a moulded inner doorway with ballflowers, and a parapet. Following a 1980 alteration, this porch now opens into the church centre.

The north aisle is longer, with an extra bay to the east containing an organ chamber lit by lozenge windows. Adjacent to this is a 3-light aisle window reused from the earlier church, which has a taller yellow sandstone surround and hoodmould with head-carved stops. A stack rises to the east gable of the aisle. The north porch is 3-sided with an enriched arch, buttresses and ashlar roof.

The nave's west window, set in the base of the tower, comprises 3 lights with a stepped transom, a chequer panel and a traceried square window above. The tower features setback buttresses flanking louvred 3-light belfry openings with pointed arches and hoodmoulds set within flushwork panels. A string course runs beneath the embattled parapet, and an octagonal vice to the south-west corner rises higher.

The chancel is under the same roofline as the nave. Offset buttresses flank the 6-light east window, which has 2 king mullions linked by a transom, ogee-headed lights, a cusped hexafoil and hoodmould. The gable has a slit and apex cross. The south chapel is a small semi-octagonal projection between two pairs of 2-light windows reused from the earlier church in yellow sandstone. It has a 2-light window to the east and square quatrefoiled windows facing the chancel, with a parapet to its lean-to roof. The north vestry features an ogee-headed door under a round arch, a traceried cross-window, and a 2-light east window.

Internally, the western bay of the nave beneath the tower has arches to three sides springing from polygonal-based piers, with half arches to the aisles. The remaining 5-bay arcades have octagonal piers, moulded capitals, double-chamfered arches and linked hoodmoulds. A broad moulded chancel arch is braced by a flying buttress across the east end of the north aisle and a pointed arch to the organ chamber. Two arches open into the south chapel.

The nave and chancel are spanned by a barrel ceiling with bow-string trusses; those over the chancel incorporate tracery and ogee-headed openings. Sedilia are present, and a carved reredos with alabaster insets is positioned against the chancel arch.

A 14th-century font beneath the tower bears a crozier on a shield and seven pairs of shields on its other sides. The pulpit dates to around 1885 and is semi-octagonal in form, constructed of wood on a base corbelled from a chancel-arch pier. It was a gift of Edward Wadham of Millwood.

The church contains several items of stained glass. 15th-century fragments are preserved in the north porch. Mid- to late 19th-century glass includes a north-aisle window given by Henry Schneider in memory of his wife Augusta (died 1862) and an east window given by the Duke of Devonshire in memory of his son Lord Frederick Cavendish. Two windows in the south aisle are by Shrigley and Hunt of Lancaster, and Baldwin memorial windows in the south chapel date to around 1870.

Various 19th-century wall monuments are located at the west end of the aisles. The south chapel contains several monuments to the Baldwin and Atkinson families, including one to Elizabeth Baldwin (died 1848) by W Audby of York and one to William Atkinson (died 1821) by Webster of Kendal.

This building, described by Pevsner as one of Paley and Austin's most spectacular churches, was erected on the impressive site of the former parish church, which was cleared away in 1883. The construction cost of £11,553 was defrayed by the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Buccleuch and others. The new church re-established the importance of Dalton following the formation of the Borough of Barrow in Furness, which had resulted in many new places of worship.