This is a magnificent church, entirely constructed in 1863-5 to the designs of John Loughborough Pearson (1817-98), surely one of the top ten architects  of his day.  Pevsner was very sniffy about this building, describing it pejoratively as “High Victorian”.  So indeed it is, but it has no need to apologize on that account.  The building is sumptuously decorated for a building in such a rural location, and yet ultimately everything is held in check by Pearson’s refined good taste, exemplified, for example, by the frieze of structural polychromy just below the roof around the interior, in which the restrained colours add just the right degree of ornamentation. In fact many of the stones used in this church were obtained locally and they demonstrate just how well these northern, upper and middle Jurassic limestones and grits can look, as exemplified by the orange stone used in the shafts beside the W. doorway (see the thumbnail below) and most of the windows, which is Rosedale ironstone.  This is the only stone used here at Appleton-le-Moors that would soon appear gaudy if it got out of hand, but Pearson has got his composition just right.

 

The building is tall and consists of an aisled nave and chancel built under a single roof, a southeast tower (left), a tiny cross-gabled N. chapel, and an apse (below left).  The church is entered through a W. doorway, built as often in Pearson’s churches, beneath a shallow narthex from which, on entering, two further doors (one on either side) give access to the nave.

 

The W. front (shown far right), which faces the road, is especially grand.  The doorway is composed of an arch of three orders decorated with dog tooth and a roll moulding, and jambs with three orders of shafts in shaft rings.  Above in the gable, is a decafoil rose window.

 

The aisle windows are simple lancets - a group of three and a group of two to the south (illustrated below) and a group of two and a single window to the north - but they are joined high up at the springing level by a restrained frieze of blank quatrefoils.  The southeast tower rises in three stages to a tall pyramidal roof.  The two-light bell-openings have an order of shafts in shaft rings at the sides and quatrefoils in the gables above.  To either side there are deeply-cut blank cinquefoils, while in the second tower stage below, small transomed, square-headed windows have blank trefoils above their heads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The apse is lit by five lancets, each set in a wider, two-centred arch with an order of sandstone shafts in shaft rings, and these bays are divided from each other by additional, wider shafts of Rosedale ironstone.  However, the apse as a whole derives much of its grandeur from its height – the sills of the windows are about sixteen feet above ground level – and Pearson’s instinctive feeling for designing structures of this mass is shown here not least in his handling of the stonework below, which is rusticated except for four flat bands, not too wide, and two string courses, that run around the outside of the apse at different heights.

 

The northeast chapel is scarcely evident outside the church.  It has a small septfoil rose window to the east and a two-light N. window composed of two simple lancets and a circle inside plate tracery.  Inside, this chapel proves to have a quadripartite vault but it is so small that surely its main function is to add interest to the internal perspectives, its constructional and decorative details being so arranged as to be visible through its west and south arches, from the aisled nave and chancel.

 

In fact the interior of this building is impressive wherever one looks.  Pevsner described the piers to the three-bay arcades as “stumpy” and “terribly complicated” but, again, they are held in balance by the unmoulded, pointed arches above, which provide the needed calm above the busyness of the capitals.  (See the N. capital, right.)  These display a variety of intricate, stiff-leaf-like designs, and the piers below are each formed of a central column with four Rosedale ironstone shafts in shaft rings gathered round. The windows in all parts of the building are deeply set behind arches with nailhead moulding and an order of shafts, but they are also high up, so the effect is not excessive here either.  The arch from the N. chapel to the chancel is actually formed of two sub-arches beneath an open circle, all set in a large blank arch and similarly decorated.  The chancel and apse have a course each of billet moulding and leaf carving running around them, at a height of about seven and twelve feet respectively (approx. 2 m. and 3½ m.), between which is a frieze in red sgraffito showing scenes from Palm Sunday and Good Friday. (See the two photographs, left.)  A similar frieze can be seen around the stone pulpit, depicting there an assortment of saints and characters from the Old Testament.  The frieze of structural polychromy around the building just below the roof, in buffs, creams and black, has been referred to already (and is illustrated below).

 

In conclusion then, this is an admirable building, Pevsner notwithstanding.  It cost £10,000 to erect, a large sum in its day, but for that money Pearson’s sponsor got an example of Gothic Revival architecture at its best.