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Description: Church of St Stephen

Address: St Stephens Church Copley Lane Halifax West Yorkshire

Grade: IISTAR

Group detail: North Dean Road

Full description:
Church, 1863 by W. H. Crossland for Col. Edward Akroyd. Dressed stone, slate roof. Nave, chancel, aisles, south porch and transeptal chapel. Heavy offset buttresses to west front and between nave and chancel. Nave is of 5 bays with extremely steep roof. Clerestorey lancets and tall 4-light window in a free Early English style to west front above which is a roundel with figure of patron saint in high relief. The aisles have pierced trefoil parapet and bays separated by pinnacled buttresses. Each bay has 3 cinquefoil windows with hood moulds and decorative stops. South porch in western bay of nave has pointed relieving arch and decorated segmental tympanum. Gable over with damaged figure in niche. North transept with 2 lancets and large quatrefoil window over. Tall chimney with coupled stack rising from wall. Chancel is roofed continuously with the nave but a bellcote with paired openings stands over the join. The chancel has a 5 sided apse with tall lancets with colonnettes in each face. On south side small vestry with cusped headed priest's door. The whole has decorative hoodmould stops and much grotesque carving. Interior: wide nave with waggon roof with differing arcades. That on the south side has moulded arches carried on cylindrical piers. On north side unmoulded arches carried on clustered colonnettes on square bases. The capitals carved throughout. The chancel arch carried on corbelled marbelled shafts. The chancel is tunnel vaulted with moulded ribs forming a star over the apse; foliated string beneath the windows and much shafting. Heavy arch to North transept which is filled by the organ. Above this a two bay arcade at clerestory level. The lavish decorative scheme survives in part, chiefly paintings of saints on south wall of chancel and stenciling to lean-to ceilings of aisles. Other fittings include richly decorated pulpit with mosaic panels; wrought iron chancel rail and gates. Reredos with mosaic and good stained glass in west window and apse. 'The Building News', Vol. 7 (August 1861), p.649. 'The Ecclesiologist', Vol. XXIII (1865) p.368. R. A. Carter 'Guide to Yorkshire Churches', (Idle, 1976), p.20.