St. Mary's Church

St. Mary's Church

St. Mary's Church was built in 1873 at a cost of £5,000 to replace the medieval church of St. Michael, which had become too small for the rapidly expanding parish. The tower was completed in 1907. The church was designed by E G Paley and J H Austin, architects of Lancaster, and built by O Gethin D Jones, a building contractor from Penmachno. The land and some of the building stone were donated by Lord Willoughby De Eresby of Gwydir Castle.

The building is a large church in Transitional style, arranged on a cruciform plan with a crossing tower and organ chamber to the south. It is constructed of rubble with grey stone facings and red sandstone dressings, apparently quarried from the Ancaster estate in Lincolnshire. The steeply pitched roofs are covered in small slates with gable parapets, and the tower has a pyramidal tiled roof.

The tall eastern end features angle buttresses and a grouped 5-light plate tracery window with the taller central light flanked by cusped occuli, with two small lancets above. Large lancets light the upper north and south chancel walls, with cill bands and continuous labels. A 4-stage projecting stair turret on the north side of the crossing tower has a square lower section and semicircular upper section, terminating in a conical stone roof. The main entrance has a chip-carved tympanum with engaged flanking shafts topped by waterleaf capitals, a returned moulded label, and a boarded door with decorative iron hinges.

The tower is four stages high, with lancets to the first floor and belfry level flanking clock faces. A sandstone parapet stepped up at the corners features a moulded cornice below and a decorative iron weathervane at the roof apex.

The tall nave is lit by five squat lancets to the north and south clerestory, each with double chamfers and returned labels. Single-storey aisles have five plain lancets each; the easternmost window is doubled on the south side and tripled on the north side. A large gabled porch projects from the north aisle at the west end, with a timber upper section on rubble lower walls, simply-cusped tracery bargeboards, and a curved-braced framed gable. A plain entrance features paired glazed flanking lights. The porch has a buff brick floor laid in herringbone pattern and a stone wall bench to the east. The main entrance beneath the nave has triple arches with hollow sunk and keel-moulded detail, chamfered and broach-stopped outer jambs, and decorative ironwork to a boarded door. A modern connecting bay joins the church to a hall addition at the northwest corner. The west end has a large plate tracery rose window with cusping and punched trefoils, keel-moulded detail, and a plain lancet above, all buttressed. The organ chamber has a long catslide roof, large twin lancets, and an entrance below with double chamfer and returned label; a stepped sandstone parapet provides external access. Bold blind arcading with chevron moulding decorates the central south side of the tower, with continuous labels and shafts topped by waterleaf and scalloped capitals.

The interior has unrendered walls and a buff brick floor in herringbone arrangement. The four-bay nave is roofed with clustered scissor trusses with tie-beams at the bay divisions. Pointed-arched arcades lead to shallow aisles with plain roofs. Large columns have plain bases and alternating scalloped and waterleaf capitals, with wide splays to the rear arches of clerestory windows. An Early English font of black and burgundy marble sits on a plain base. Simple softwood pews are present throughout.

The Early English pulpit is sandstone with blind arcaded sides and foliate decoration to the spandrels, featuring a pink marble parapet and black marble corner-shafts with shaft rings. The large crossing arch has a keel-moulded outer arch and plain inner arch with waterleaf capitals; stiff-leafed carving decorates corbelled inner arches above stall level. The stepped-up crossing features a rib vault with angle shafts and decorative brass altar rails. The organ dates to 1870 and was made by Gray and Davison of London.

The chancel arch and vault match the crossing. The stepped-up chancel has an arched recess on the south side and an aumbry on the north. A simple decorative tiled pavement and Arts and Crafts oak choir stalls and reading desks with copper repoussé panels furnish the chancel. The reredos is Italian alabaster depicting scenes of Christ's Passion in shallow niches; it was inserted in 1929.

The church contains good painted and stained glass windows in the nave, aisles and chancel, mostly by Shrigly and Hunt of Lancaster, with one window designed by Carl Almquist. Additional glass is by Jones and Willis of London and Birmingham, and further windows follow designs by Sir E. Burne-Jones.

The church is listed at Grade II* as an impressive and largely unaltered commission in bold Transitional style by Paley and Austin of Lancaster.