Church Heritage Record 646306

4-bay nave with west bell-cote and clerestory, lean-to aisles with gabled south porch. West bay partitioned to form parish room with kitchen to north. Chancel with north vestry and south organ chamber. North transept containing vestries and WCs.

Nave since partitioning –7m (23ft) wide x 12 m (40ft) long, aisles 3m (10ft) wide, chancel 3m (10ft) x 7m (23ft).

Archaeological records include those for C19th and C20th buildings relating to the textile trade including Rayners Textile Mill and Hare Park Mills, both late C19th, to the south-east, and C20th Victoria Dye works to the south-east. Walton Cross (a SAM), the base of an early C9th cross, is within 1km to the south-west.

The church was the first known building on the site and there are no burials.

The church was designed by a local architect W Swindon Barber of Halifax and built in 1892-3. The site was bequeathed for the purpose in 1855 by Benjamin Armitage of Littletown, together with a sum of £1,000. But it took a long time to raise the rest of the money, and it was not until 11 June 1892 that the foundation stone was laid by Mr Walter Freeman of Bilton Court, Knaresborough. The contractors were W & J Milner of Mirfield and the completed church cost £4,500 including the furnishings. The building was consecrated by Dr Walsham How, Bishop of Wakefield, on 21 September 1893.

The parish considered closure c.1984 but the decision was made to stay open. Some alterations have been made since then including the laying of carpet in the nave, the insertion of the west partition and kitchen and relocation of the font c.1990s. A fire in the south aisle is recorded in the inventory in 1997 which may have contributed to the loss of several items of furniture recorded in the original 1984 PM report.

Hightown, so called for its location on high ground, grew with the textile trade. Charlotte Brontë’s parents lived in Hightown 1812-15.

Some trees in the churchyard. No protections in place.

Contemporary newspaper accounts speak of the church as "plain and substantial”, suited to its exposed site on a hill overlooking the Spen valley. It is a simple essay in the Early English style with triplets of equal lancet windows in each bay of the lean-to aisles, and cinquefoils in circles in the clerestorey. There is a continuous plinth around the church with ventilation grates.

The west gable has two tall lancets with trefoils in the heads under linked hoods with floriated stops and at the apex a bell-cote of stone with two arches for the two bells. The west walls of the aisles also have paired lancets and are divided from the nave wall by tall stepped buttresses. The aisles also have angle buttresses. The only other buttress is at the south-east corner marking the aisle from the organ chamber. It is a large buttress incorporating an uninscribed foundation stone and terminating in a gablet decorated with blind tracery. On the north side a double gabled projection, one originally intended to provide for Sunday School children, together contain the vestries, WCs and storage. East facing chimneys. North door with stairs and handrail up to it. Locked boiler house beneath.                                                           

The chancel has a group of three lancets in the east wall under which is a buttress to sill height, and there are also buttresses at the angles. 2 crosses in stonework above. The lancets are linked by hoodmoulds. There are two crosses carved in relief in roundels above. Stone cross finials are placed over the two east gables and the chancel roof is lower than the nave. Single lancets in north and south walls. Also smaller two-light window in south wall of organ chamber.

A wide gabled south porch, paved with stone flags, has a single step up into the porchway. 3-light detail in apex and stone finial to gable. Modern wood outer doors with pointed, chamfered surround.

The interior has plastered and whitened walls leaving the stone dressings exposed. The western-most bay, of the now interrupted 4-bay arcade, has been partitioned by the insertion of a low boarded ceiling with ceiling lights, and glazed doors leading into the nave at the centre, and pointed wooden double doors to north and south sides. That to the north accesses storage that to the south provides access directly from the porch. A kitchen is located to the north side of this area. In the west wall, a reveal beneath the southern of the two lancets can still be seen dropping down to the floor. The font has been moved from its original location here to the east end of the nave. Chairs provide seating.

Within the main worship area, the arches of the arcade have an outer order with moulding along the arris and an inner chamfered order. The cylindrical pillars have plain bases and simply carved capitals. The eastern most bay of the north aisle has a filled-in arch with a door inserted into it, which opens into the transept-type space intended for the Sunday School children, now with several small rooms and access to WCs and the vestry.

The level floor is covered with carpet throughout obscuring the stone paving and boarded floors beneath the pews though metal grates remain exposed. The nave roof has tie-beams and kingpost principal trusses which rest on stone corbels between the clerestory windows (which are above a stone cill). Flood lights are fixed at clerestory level. Windows are all of clear rectangular leaded panes (except the east window). The font is now located at the east end of the nave, to the south of the chancel arch, echoing the position of the fixed stone pulpit on the north side. Organ pipes fill an arch at the east end of the south aisle. Both aisles have been cleared of fixed seating.

At the chancel arch there are two steps and the arch itself has two chamfered orders carried on chamfered responds with attached semi-cylindrical pillars with foliate capitals. An arch to the south of the chancel is filled by the organ. There is choir seating. To the north a doorway leads to the vestry, down 2 steps. A step up at the brass altar rail and another to the altar. The floor is carpeted, over stone flags. A recess in the south wall contains the sedilia. The roof has semi-circular braces to each pair of rafters giving almost the appearance of a vault. A 7-bay oak screen, once located across the chancel arch, is fixed against the east wall beneath the window. The frontals of the two tiers of choir stalls have been positioned in front of it.