An attractive small church of the 1920s, built from local stone and harmonious with its setting.

Mass for the expanding mill community of Haworth was first said at Shepherd’s Lodge in 1917. The parish was established in 1922, when Craven Royds, a detached double-fronted house in Ebor Lane, Mytholmes (a hamlet north of Haworth), was purchased for £1,500 for use as the presbytery. The house has a large garden stretching down the hill and the new church was erected at the bottom of the garden; the foundation stone was laid on 10 June 1924 and the church opened on 19 April 1925. The architect was Charles Simpson of Edward Simpson & Son, Bradford and the reported cost was £2,700.

Description

The church has the altar facing south but in this section all references will be to conventional orientation, i.e. as if the church faced east.

Built of local sandstone with a blue slate roof, the church is modest in size and of plain Early English Gothic style. Nave and sanctuary in one, southwest porch and a large sacristy projecting from the southeast corner. The gabled west front has a pair of tall lancets. Small porch projecting to the right with a gable facing south and the entrance on the west side set within a shallow open porch under a segmental arch. The north side has six evenly-spaced lancet windows, while on the south side there are just two similar windows owing to the gabled porch and the gabled sacristy which has a chimney rising from the gable. The east gable has an encircled sexfoil window set high up.

The interior has no division between nave and sanctuary and a continuous boarded roof with scissor-braced trusses, with quasi-hammerbeams supported on stone corbels. The lancet windows are set within segmental-arched reveals. The walls are plastered, with a decorative panel treatment to the dado. Simple open-back pews arranged herringbone fashion. A Gothic reredos has long since been removed and the sanctuary fittings are simple and modern. Carved and painted wood statue of Our Lady on the south side of the nave, commissioned in 1920 from Italy. Life-size plaster statue of Our Lord at the west end. Stations of the Cross, plaster relief panels within Gothic frames. The east window has stained glass depicting Our Lady, in a decorative frame.

Heritage Details