Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a church dating to 1860, designed by Mallinson and Healey. It is situated in Lower Dunsforth. The church is constructed from hammered sandstone on a chamfered plinth, with sandstone ashlar quoins and dressings, and has stone slate roofs. The building comprises a four-bay nave, a south-west tower, a chancel, a north organ chamber, and a vestry. It is designed in the geometrical style.

The west end features offset diagonal buttresses and a three-light pointed window with a corbel-stopped hoodmould, set above a sill string. The three-stage, buttressed tower has a double-chamfered pointed arch, also with a corbel-stopped hoodmould, leading to a south porch. A nail-studded south door, with fine wrought ironwork, is set in a pointed chamfered opening. A cusped lancet window is situated in the lowest stage to the west. An extruded tower staircase is located to the east. The second stage features single rectangular lights, to the east, west, and south, below clock faces with round hoodmoulds to the west and south. The bell openings are paired louvred lancets with notched cusped heads, within pointed openings with pointed corbelled hoodmoulds. A chamfered belfry string is present, along with a band of trefoil tracery beneath a broach spire with a wrought iron weathervane. To the east of the tower, two two-light windows are present, also with corbel-stopped hoods, above a chamfered sillband.

The north side repeats the south side fenestration, but without hoodmoulds or a sillband. The chancel has two south side windows, one of two lights and one single, above a chamfered sillband which steps up beneath the easterly window. On the north side, a projecting gabled vestry has a single-light window with a notched cusped head in the gable end. A shouldered doorway in a broach-stopped surround is located in the east return. A single-light window is positioned in the chancel east of the vestry. The buttressed east end has a pointed window with three notched cusped lancets and notched trefoil tracery, also with a corbel-stopped hoodmould and a sill string stepped down on each side of the window. Gable crosses are at both ends of the nave and the east end of the chancel. All openings are quoined.

The interior features a tall, double-chamfered pointed chancel arch on half-octagonal responds with moulded capitals and a hoodmould on corbelheads. Within the vestry is a reused 12th-century round arch, beakhead-moulded, on slender cylindrical shafts with scalloped capitals; its outer moulding has rosettes set on 19th-century corbels. A carved capital of pomegranates and leaves is set into the wall.