Description

704/0/10053 ST MARY'S STREET
17-MAR-05 Warrington
Church of our Lady of the Assumption

II
Catholic church. 1901-2, By Robert Curran, architect, of Warrington, with fittings by John Douglas of Chester. Coursed rock-faced sandstone with ashlar red sandstone dressings,steeply pitched roofs with coped gables, and a Welsh slate roof coverings incorporating decorative banding. Restrained Decorative Gothic Revival style.
PLAN: Linear plan, oriented east-west, with south-west corner tower incorporating porch, nave, north and south aisles and chapels, chancel and sanctuary.
EXTERIOR: Steeply-gabled west front with a tall 5-light Geometric-traceried window within a deeply-moulded pointed arch. Below, similarly moulded arch to West door
and hood mould with finely sculpted head stops depicting Christ and the Virgin Mary. Plank double doors with elaborate strap hinges. A moulded string at cill level links the West window to flanking stepped buttresses. Lean-to aisles to north and south sides, the latter extending from the rear of a 2-stage south-west tower. This has angle buttresses, a deeply moulded surround to the porch doorway in the south elevation, and above, an elaborate niche with a corbelled base and cusped head within a crocketed gablet. North and south aisles have cusped 2-light windows with hoodmoulds to 4-centred arch heads. Clerestory windows above are of 3 lights with flat heads at eaves level. Shallow buttresses delineate the nave and chancel bays. At the end of each aisle, attached single bay chapels with steeply-pitched roofs and coped gables with cross finials. Gables have traceried circular windows with quatrefoils surrounding central trefoils. Chancel and canted sanctuary with blind east wall and 2-light windows to flanking canted walls.
INTERIOR: Tall 5-bay nave with pointed arches to aisle arcades supported on polished red granite columns. Roof trusses are carried on slender attached shafts rising from corbels within the intersections of the nave arcade arches. Elaborate and accomplished screens to the side chapels, servers stalls and a canopied sedilia designed by John Douglas of Chester,and executed by Bridgemans of Lichfield. Pulpit of 1936 by Joseph Reubens of Bruges. Stained Glass sanctuary windows of 1932 and 1939 by Margaret Rope.
HISTORY: The church was designed to include an 150 ft spire set upon the south-west tower. The fittings designed by Douglas were his only Catholic Commission, and their designs were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1907.

The church of Our Lady of the Assumption is of special architectural interest as a carefully composed ecclesiastical design of the early C20, which has undergone little substantive alteration, and which retains fixtures fittings of high quality, including designs by the celebrated Chester architect John Douglas.

Reasons for Listing

Yes List

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26672779

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)