Holy Rood, Barnsley

Introduction

The church is built of coursed, squared sandstone with ashlar dressings and Welsh slate roofs. The parish has a Guild of St Stephen, a Rosary Group, and a Folk Group.

Architecture and furnishings

The interior walls are of red brick with stone dressings. The nave and sanctuary have an arch-braced hammer-beam panelled roof. The sanctuary has diagonally set squares of Swedish green and white marble. The aisles have two traceried recesses to each side, alternating with the confessionals, which contain two marble sculptures of the Pieta and St Patrick, and two stone sculptures of St Michael and St Anthony.

The octagonal pulpit is of carved stone with red marble colonettes and moulded coping and a mosaic panel of Christ the Shepherd. The south transept has the Shrine to English Martyrs (war memorial) with a Uttoxeter alabaster Gothic frame with opus sectile panels and mosaic panels beneath, and the Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. The north transept has the Shrine of St Teresa of the Child Jesus, also with a opus sectile panel, Gothic alabaster frame and altar. The Lady Chapel to the south is lined with white marble with opus sectile images.

The baptistry has wood block flooring and an octagonal, relief-carved stone font. Around 1920 the congregation commissioned Stations of the Cross from Gabriel Pippett as a war memorial to those who lost their lives in the First World War. Above the aisle recesses is a blind, traceried frieze into which are set fourteen tessellated Stations of the Cross, the work of the artist Gabriel Pippett, which were erected by the congregation as a First World War Memorial.

Sacraments and pastoral care

The Confirmation preparation course includes choosing a Confirmation name with meaning and purpose. The parish offers a baptismal preparation programme held at Our Lady & St James church, Worsbrough. The parish allows a child to be baptised with other children, as Baptism is entry into the family of the Church.

The parish requires a minimum of six months' notice for a wedding to allow the paperwork to be completed. The parish allows the body to be brought into church with a brief service on the evening before the funeral, if requested. The parish allows only sacred music in church and never permits recorded music at funerals.