A curious chapel-like church in a hybrid round-arched style, compact in its use of a sloping site, with ancillary accommodation below.

Queensbury is a relatively new settlement which grew up around The Queen’s Head Inn on the Halifax to Leeds turnpike road. In 1923 Mass was celebrated in the Co-operative Hall. The site for the present church, on the corner of West End and Russell Road, was purchased in 1928. The foundation stone was laid in January 1931 and the church opened on 18 December of that year. The independent parish was established 1948.

Description

The church has the altar facing southeast but this description follows conventional orientation, i.e. as if the church faced east.

The church is built of Yorkshire sandstone with a slate roof. It is cruciform in plan and, owing to a change of level between West End and Russell Road, is raised over a basement  hall and ancillary rooms. The church comprises nave, short transepts and a lower sanctuary. Staircase and sacristy, with a chimney, in the southeast corner in the angle between the transept and sanctuary. It is designed in a round-arched style, as much Italianate classical as Romanesque. The gabled west front has a slightly advanced  entrance bay with a dentil cornice and a tripartite entrance of paired doors with overlight and side windows, divided by colonnettes with crocket capitals. Large circular window in the gable and similar windows set high up in the west walls of the transepts. Otherwise the nave and transepts have large round-headed windows with simple moulded surrounds. The sanctuary has rectangular domestic-style clerestory windows.

The interior is plastered and has big round-arched trusses, also plastered and painted. The windows are set within round-arched recesses, perhaps intended to give flexibility should it be decided to add aisles at a later date. Plain round arches to the transepts (the south transept is divided off by a screen dated 1988) and sanctuary and a blind round-arched recess on the east wall. Round-arched niches on the east wall of the nave containing statues. The westernmost bay is separated off by a glazed wooden screen to form a generous porch or narthex. Decorative coloured and textured glass in all windows. Simple oak benches in the nave. The timber sanctuary furnishings look more recent.

Heritage Details