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Description: Church of St Mary the Blessed Virgin

Address: St Marys Church High Street Luddenden Halifax West Yorkshire

Grade: II

Group detail: High Street (north side, off), Luddenden

Full description:
Church. 1816-17 by Thomas Taylor of Leeds, alterations and extensions 1866 and 1910. Coursed squared stone, Welsh slate roof. Gothic style. West tower with south porch (now vestry) and north addition, nave, chancel. Tower: 2 stages. Offset clasping buttresses rise into crocketed finials. Embattled pent porch on south with blocked doorway. West doorway with 2-light window above, both with hoodmoulds. All windows with Y-tracery. 2-light belfry openings, southern one with later clock face. Embattled parapet. Nave: 4 bays defined by offset pilaster buttresses. Plinth. 3-light intersecting tracery window on left, others of 2 cusped lights with trefoils over, all with hoodmoulds. Cornice with gutter spouts; embattled gables. North windows of 3 lights with intersecting tracery. Tracery all of 1866. Chancel: 1866, extended 1910. 3 bays, lower and narrower than nave. Plinth, offset buttresses. 2-light Perpendicular-style windows; arched openings under right hand window. Raised verge with gable cross. 5-light east window with rectilinear tracery. Interior: nave has attached octagonal columns rising to window head height. Panelled roofs. In tower double stair with ramped handrail on straight and wavy iron balusters leads up to gallery (restored 1985/86). At back of church font dated 1662 has fluted base with rolled top supporting octagonal basin with carved panels to sides, one dated. Near to it is earlier tub front. Near the Victorian pulpit is an early C19 font with octagonal base, concave shaft and small cyma-moulded bowl. Some C18 monuments including one in south porch to James Farrer of Ewood Hall, d.1718, having swags and cherubs beneath a cartouche surmounted by arms with festoons. In south east wall of nave brass memorial plate to William Grimshaw, d.1763, incumbent of Haworth who introduced Methodism to that area. Benefaction boards in tower. This church is the third to be built on the site. A cross wall being inserted in nave and other alterations being undertaken at the time of resurvey. J A Heginbottom, (The Parish Church of St Mary the Blessed Virgin, Luddenden with Luddenden Foot, A Brief History and Guide) (1984).