Church of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This is an Early Decorated style church built of dressed snecked stone with a slate roof featuring overhanging eaves and coped gables. The gables are crowned with gablets at the eaves and crosses at the apex. The walls have plinth and sill bands, with hood moulds linked by an impost band. All windows display geometrical tracery characteristic of the period.

The building comprises a nave with a north aisle, a south porch, a slightly lower and narrower chancel, and a northeast tower. The porch is shallow and gabled, set back from the west end with angle buttresses that carry gablets on the side walls only. The arched doorway has a single order of nook shafts and half-round responds with fillets, topped by a moulded two-centred arch. Above the doorway sits a small cusped light flanked by attached pinnacles. The porch interior is tunnel-vaulted with stone seats on both sides. The south doorway to the nave has double boarded doors enriched with vertical ribs, studs, and strap hinges. The porch side walls contain pairs of cusped lights with an impost band that extends over the windows as hood moulds.

The nave has three three-light windows, with the centre window showing slightly different tracery. At the east end of the nave stands a stepped buttress bearing a panel carved in relief depicting the crucifixion on an angel corbel, probably reused from a 14th-century churchyard cross. The chancel's south wall contains six lancet windows arranged in an arcade with round shafts and moulded capitals. The high-set east window is five-light with a hood mould featuring head stops.

The dominant feature is the broad, square northeast tower, set back from the east end of the chancel. It rises in three stages with a diagonal northeast buttress and a projecting square turret to the northwest, lit by narrow slits and quatrefoils. The lower stage features a small doorway in the west wall with a roll-moulded surround, reached by stone steps, with a ribbed and studded door similar to the porch door. The north face contains a single hooded cusped light offset to the right, and the east wall has two similar windows. In the middle stage, the north face displays two similar cusped lights, while the east face has four quatrefoils arranged in a circle within a roll-moulded square surround. The upper stage is slightly narrower. The belfry features two deeply moulded two-light windows with louvres on each face. Above these windows, the east and west faces have round clock faces flanked by attached shafts standing on the apex of the belfry windows. Above the belfry windows runs a frieze of lozenges with blind quatrefoils. The embattled parapet has stepped merlons, and behind it rises a steep pyramidal slate roof crowned with an apex weathervane.

The north aisle contains four two-light windows and a three-light west window with hood mould. The west wall of the nave has paired three-light windows flanking a central buttress enriched with nook shafts. Above impost level, this buttress carries an attached diagonal pinnacle flanked by small quatrefoil lights in square moulded surrounds.

The interior of the nave displays a four-bay north arcade of two-centred arches on round marble piers with moulded freestone capitals. The arched-brace roof has two tiers of windbraces with principals standing on moulded corbels. The aisle roof is arched-brace on moulded brackets and stone corbels. The nave and aisle windows have hood moulds linked by string courses. The chancel arch features an outer single order of marble nook shafts with two shaft rings, an inner moulded two-centred arch on responds with short clustered marble wall shafts, and hood mould with angel stops. The chancel has a boarded polygonal ceiling with thin moulded ribs enriched with painted quatrefoils and a moulded and pierced cornice. The east window has a shafted rere arch, while the south chancel window has an arcaded rere arch with marble shafts and continuous hood mould. On the north side of the chancel is a two-centred arch opening to the vestry in the tower base, with two orders of chamfer dying into the imposts. Beside it is a credence shelf with cusped arch and foliage to the spandrels. The chancel floor is laid in encaustic tiles.

The panelled chancel reredos features ornate cresting with a central painting of the Last Supper flanked by panels containing the Creed, Decalogue, and Lord's Prayer against gold backgrounds.

All furnishings are the work of Douglas. The round marble font bears the inscription "suffer little children..." engraved beneath the rim and stands on a triangular base with attached filleted shafts. It has a tall wooden openwork Gothic cover. A second, baluster-shaped freestone font stands at the west end of the north aisle, brought from the old church, and is inscribed around the bowl "W Taylor, H Hughes, Churchwardens 1776". The polygonal wooden pulpit has relief panels of stylised foliage below open close-traceried panels, standing on a marble base continuous with a freestone chancel screen base with relief-moulded foliage panels and marble coping. The communion rail features open iron scrollwork with a wooden handrail. The pews have moulded ends. The choir stalls, with attached priests' stalls, are more elaborate, with panelled fronts decorated in relief.

All windows contain stained glass by Heaton, Butler & Bayne. The east window depicts the crucifixion, with twelve apostles shown in the south chancel window. The nave and aisle contain monochromatic glass, mostly illustrating New Testament scenes. The nave's south wall shows the first miracle, Christ as the Light of the World, and the resurrection of Lazarus. The west wall depicts the angel appearing to the shepherds and the three wise men, while the north aisle contains scenes of Jesus teaching and windows illustrating various blessings.

The north aisle contains wall monuments, some brought from the old church. At the west end is a black slate tablet to Ann Williams (died 1703) beneath a marble cartouche, a white marble tablet to David Price (died 1746) and various descendants, and a black marble tablet with egg-and-dart border and swan-necked pediment with urn framing a white inscription tablet commemorating George Hughes (died 1899), an agent of the Duke of Westminster's Halkyn Estate. A marble tablet by Thomas Pearce of London commemorates Henry Cooper (died 1877), and a plain tablet to Reverend Edward Roberts (died 1839) by J Browne of London is dated 1840.

The tower contains a newel stair. Rainwater goods are dated 1877.