ST MARY THE VIRGIN

Millfield Road, Horbury Junction, Wakefield, WF4 5DU

Contact: Mrs A Webb - Secretary & PCC Member Tel: 01924 830661

St Mary’s was built in 1892/3, to designs by GF Bodley. The church was consecrated on 1Oth October 1893, and replaced a Mission Room, on the other side of the railway lines on Forge Lane: that building survives as a private house.

From the outside, St Mary’s appears a rather plain and unpretentious building: internally it is a particularly elegant and spacious church in the 14^th century style, and designed to be suitable for the Tractarian style of worship favoured by its founder, John Sharp, Vicar of Horbury from 1834-1899. He seems consciously to have seen St Mary’s as the crown of his life’s work in Horbury, and a number of the windows, fixtures and fittings were given in appreciation of his ministry, and as memorials to him and those who worked with him. St Mary’s is a far more ambitious building than his other foundation, St John’s Horbury Bridge, : and it is in an architectural style which would have been more to his taste than the coolly elegant classicism of St Peter’s, the parish Church in the centre of  the town.

St Mary’s remains substantially as built. It required major repairs in the late 1920s, to designs by WD Caroe, which included the extension of the side chapel: there were subsequent repair projects including most notably the replacement of the nave roof in the early 1950s, and most recently, a major restoration in 2009/10, achieved with generous support from English Heritage, which saw extensive repairs to the stonework, the renewal of the aisle and vestry roofs, redecoration and the cleaning of the stained glass windows.

Internally, St Mary’s retains most of its original fixtures and fittings, and has escaped unsympathetic reordering. The most notable feature is the collection of stained glass windows, mostly by CE Kempe. The East and West windows are particularly fine, as are the windows in the side chapel depicting the Nativity. The other windows form a portrait gallery of saints  especially popular with Victorian churchmen: as with all the windows, cleaning has revealed the sumptuous colours and delight in detail of the stained glass artist.

There is a good collection of Victorian brass, including an eagle lectern, and some elegant candlesticks. The reredos is of the late 1950s and is a memorial to a Vicar who died in office: the altar rails are by Robert Thompson of Kilburn, and his trademark carved mouse is present, though it takes some finding!

The other features to note are the light and elegant screen, featuring the emblem of St Mary, the fleur de lys and the richly carved canopy over the font, a memorial to Fr AWB Watson, who died in 1911.

St Mary’s is a living building, well used and much loved by its congregation and by local people. Its location makes it a real “hidden treasure”:  we hope that you will come and discover it for yourselves.

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