Catholic Church of St Mary including attached presbytery

Catholic Church of St Mary including Attached Presbytery

Church in Early English Gothic style, built from randomly coursed snecked Pwllypant stone with Bath stone dressings. Slate roofs feature parapeted gables and crucifix finials, whilst elongated corner buttresses without set-offs provide structural support.

The church comprises an aisled nave with transepts, a square-ended sanctuary with side chapels. The east window is a stepped 5-light design with cusped lights and linked hoodmoulds, crowned by a cinquefoil above the clerestory. The west front is dominated by pilaster-like buttresses that separate the nave from lean-to aisles. A shallow gabled porch frames a moulded trefoil-headed doorway of 3 orders with double boarded doors accessed by steps. Narrow lancets flank the doorway, with paired lancets lighting each aisle. The gable apex features triple lancets above paired lancets in the transepts. The east end of the side chapels has triple lancets, whilst the nave has paired lancets and the clerestory paired lancets with plate tracery in the sanctuary clerestory.

The presbytery is attached to the east end of the church by a short single-storey linking block serving as a porch with access to both presbytery and church. It is a large, two-storey building of sturdy domestic Gothic style, constructed in brick with stone dressings including plinth and string course. A slate roof with ridge cresting crowns the structure. Canted bay windows enliven two principal gables, with single-light windows elsewhere on the ground floor (paired in the rear wing) and 2-light mullioned and transomed windows on the first floor, all featuring shallow arched stone heads. Glazing has been renewed.

The interior is spacious, with Corsham Down Bath stone dressings, pillars and arches throughout. A modern glazed screen at the west end forms a narthex with piety stall and archway leading to lavatories in the north aisle. A 1921 gallery above the narthex is accessed by a spiral stair in the northwest corner. The five-bay nave has alternating round and polygonal piers with taller arches to the transepts. An open-timbered king post roof springs from moulded stone corbels, featuring pointed principals and collar beams. A panelled confessional with cusped blind tracery and the Lady chapel open off the north aisle. The lean-to aisle roofs are simple. A four-bay chancel has attached shafts to the springers of a panelled pointed ceiling. Sanctuary arcades to north and south feature granite columns with painted stone bases, capitals and moulded arches, beneath a timber barrel vaulted roof. The Blessed Sacrament Chapel lies to the north and the Sacred Heart chapel to the south.

The reredos is of alabaster and marble with open tracery and carved figures of St Bernard and St Stephen beneath canopies, featuring the pelican in her piety and foliage detailing. A forward altar has cusped tracery. A carved and painted stone and marble polygonal pulpit displays open arcading, its pillars later reused for the tabernacle plinth in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. The Blessed Sacrament Chapel contains marble altar rails and metal gates. The Sacred Heart Chapel holds an octagonal stone font dated 1910. Painted plaster relief Stations of the Cross adorn the walls. The east window is a five-light design depicting the five Joyful Mysteries, likely twentieth century in date, similar in style to the north transept window showing the Coronation of the Virgin and the Assumption, and the south transept window depicting the Way of the Cross and Crucifixion.

The interior of the presbytery retains an encaustic tiled floor in the link with the church, and good original joinery including a fine staircase.