The Church of St Mary the Virgin in Middleton,

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...

, England is an active

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

in the Armley deanery in the archdeaconry of Leeds and the Diocese of Leeds. The church and its

lych gate A lychgate (from Old English ''līc'', corpse) or resurrection gate is a covered gateway found at the entrance to a traditional English or English-style churchyard. Examples also exist outside the British Isles in places such as Newfoundland, the ...

are

Grade II listed buildings In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

In 1494, a

chantry chapel A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings: # a chantry service, a set of Church service, Christian liturgical celebrations for the dead (made up of the Requiem Mass and the Office of the Dead), or # a chantr ...

dedicated to St Mary the Virgin was endowed by Gilbert Leygh in Middleton It closed at the time of the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

. Middleton was part of the parish of Rothwell. In 1845, R.H. Brandling of Middleton Lodge gave land on Town Street on which to build a church and parsonage. The Brandlings owned the Middleton Collieries and built the

Middleton Railway The Middleton Railway is the world's oldest continuously working railway, situated in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1758 and is now a heritage railway, run by volunteers from The Middleton Railway Trust Ltd. since 1960. The ...

. The Incorporated Society for promoting the Enlargement, Building and Repairing of Churches and Chapels made a grant of £350 towards the cost of building the church, on condition that all the seats were declared free, and public subscriptions raised more than £1,000. There is a tradition that Middleton miners gave either a week's wages or a week's work towards the cost of the building. The church was built in the Early English style to designs by R. D. Chantrell, who also designed

Leeds Parish Church Leeds Minster, also known as the Minster and Parish Church of Saint Peter-at-Leeds (formerly Leeds Parish Church), is the minster church of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It stands on the site of the oldest church in the city and is of architec ...

, in 1846. The church was consecrated on 22 September 1846 by Bishop Longley of Ripon, with the sermon preached by W. F. Hook, Vicar of Leeds. The Middleton Estate and Colliery Company was granted a licence to mine a seam of coal under the church in 1917 resulting in subsidence and damage to the tall spire which was taken down in 1939.

Structure

Exterior

The church is built in coursed

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

with

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

roofs in the Early English

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

style. The

aisle An aisle is a linear space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, in buildings such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parliaments, courtrooms, ...

s have two-light

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a sharp pointed arch at its top. This arch may or may not be a steep lancet arch (in which the compass centres for drawing the arch fall outside the opening). It acquired the "lancet" name from its rese ...

s between

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ...

es and the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

single light lancets. There is a three-stage south west tower with an embattled

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

, angle buttresses and a porch with a Gothic arch and planked door with ornate hinges. There are three-light

belfry The belfry /ˈbɛlfri/ is a structure enclosing bells for ringing as part of a building, usually as part of a bell tower or steeple. It can also refer to the entire tower or building, particularly in continental Europe for such a tower attached ...

windows; the outer windows are blocked.

Interior

The east window depicts Christ and the west window is on the theme of the evangelists. Windows in the chancel contain stained glass by

William Wailes William Wailes (1808–1881) was the proprietor of one of England's largest and most prolific stained glass workshops. Life and career Wailes was born and grew up in Newcastle on Tyne, England's centre of domestic glass and bottle manufacturing. ...

of Newcastle made between 1848 and 1852. There are two late-Victorian windows made by Barnett of Newcastle and the rest of the church is glazed in clear leaded lights. The vestry was formed in 1882 by partitioning the north west corner with solid oak screens. The tower holds a single bell made by C & G Mears of the

Whitechapel Bell Foundry The Whitechapel Bell Foundry was a business in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. At the time of the closure of its Whitechapel premises, it was the oldest manufacturing company in Great Britain. The bell foundry primarily made church bells ...

in 1846 and is hung for swing chiming. The clock by

Potts of Leeds Potts of Leeds was a major British manufacturer of public clocks, based in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. History William Potts was born in December 1809 and was apprenticed to Samuel Thompson, a Darlington clockmaker. In 1833, at the age of 2 ...

dates from 1862.

Lych gate

The

, in the Gothic Revival style by R. D. Chantrell, dates from about 1846. It is built of coursed squared stone with a stone roof. It has a steeply pitched roof with stone coping to the gable ends and crosses at the apex. The flanking walls have pointed coping with shallow pyramid caps to the end piers. The walls and lych gate have Grade II listed status.

References

Notes Bibliography * *

External links

The Parish of Rothwell, Genuki
{{DEFAULTSORT:Middleton, St Mary The Virgin Grade II listed churches in Leeds Anglican Diocese of Leeds Church of England church buildings in West Yorkshire Churches completed in 1846 19th-century Church of England church buildings