Immaculate Conception, Spinkhill

Introduction

The Church of the Immaculate Conception in Spinkhill is a Grade II listed building, first listed on 07-Jul-1989. The Catholic church was built in 1846 by Joseph Aloysius Hansom, with extensions of 1864 and 1966.

History

The church has a tower with broach spire, nave with south porch, chancel with chapels, and an extension to the chancel chapel of 1964. The interior has an alabaster reredos of 1904. The chancel north chapel has a diminutive hammer beam roof.

Architecture and furnishings

The church is built of regularly coursed coal measures sandstone with ashlar gritstone dressings, rising from a diagonal plinth, with coped gables with cross finials and Welsh slated roofs. The three-stage tower has stepped clasping buttresses with set-offs, a moulded stringcourse linking lancet buttresses, and moulded bandcourses delineating the stages. The spire has decorative diagonal masonry bands and lucarnes which incorporate clock faces, with cross finials. The gabled porch has a tripartite niche to the gable apex with figures of the Virgin and attendant angels.

The nave has five bays with steeply pointed arched two-light windows within deeply recessed and moulded surrounds, with hoodmoulds with head stops. The chancel south chapel has four linked shallow two-light windows with trefoil heads to lights supporting quatrefoils. The chancel south chapel has seven linked single lights, each a cusped lancet beneath a hoodmould, the moulding linked at the capitals of intermediate attached shafts. The vestry of 1864 has a plain chamfered plinth and three two-light cross windows with trefoil heads to each light.

The interior roof is carried on elaborate corbels which support roof posts. The chancel has a tall EE style chancel arch.