A simple and economical red brick building built at a time of building restrictions soon after the Second World War, to serve a mining community. 

Development of Darton is associated with the development of coal mining in the area, particularly Woolley Colliery in the late nineteenth-century and Darton Main Colliery in the early twentieth. A number of housing estates were built to accommodate miners and their families, and in order to serve a growing Catholic population a Mass centre was opened at the Darton Hotel in 1929, served from Holy Rood, Barnsley. Post-war housing development and an increasing population led to the erection of a parish in 1948 and the building of the present church in the following year.

Description

A red brick church of 1949, with artificial stone dressings to the windows and a pitched roof covered in corrugated sheet metal. The architect, if there was one, is unrecorded. The church is rectangular in plan. The west end is obscured by a brick-built block which connects the church to the presbytery. The church is entered via concrete steps on the south side. The south elevation has three large windows with stone sills separated by an exposed concrete frame. The north side similarly has two large windows with stone sills with a modern doorway and two single-light windows on either side. The east gable end has three single-light windows with stone sills and headers and a stone cross above. The interior was not inspected.

Heritage Details