The Immaculate Conception (St Mary)

Introduction

J.A. Hansom of Preston designed the church, which was built in 1850. The church is built of dressed limestone with quoins at angles, and has a Welsh slate roof with terracotta ridge crestings.

Architecture and furnishings

The church has a 4-stage tower with clasping buttresses and a straight parapet. The west gallery dates from 1886. Stained glass in the aisle and apse windows was made by Francis Barnett of York in 1851. The church is in Early English style.

The pointed west doorway has three moulded orders, the middle order having nook shafts and the inner being trefoil-headed. A figure of the Virgin is in a trefoil-headed gabled niche in the west face of the 2nd stage of the tower. The tower has lancets with nook shafts and hoodmoulds to the north and south faces of the 2nd stage, and in pairs to each face of the top stage. The 6-bay nave has paired, chamfered, trefoil-headed clearstorey windows.

The aisles and apse have single lancets with hoodmoulds and carved stops. The church interior is painted. The arcade arches are chamfered and rest on alternate round and octagonal piers. The roof is a coupled-rafter roof with 2 collar beams, wall posts, arched braces and curved angle struts to the lower beam.

The church has painted stone sedilia with a cinquefoil head. The church has a heavily carved and ornamented marble altar with predella, tabernacle and arcaded antependium. The church has alabaster communion rails and brass gates. The centre aisle has a tessellated pavement.