Church Heritage Record 622024

Cruciform, with squat crossing tower where a steeple was intended. Nave, chancel, N and S aisles, N and S transepts, W narthex, NW porch, SW memorial chapel.

No significant archaeological finds have been reported in the vicinity of the church.

Garden of remembrance enclosed by a low brick wall, used for the burial of ashes.

St Mary’s was built in response to the growth of Waterloo as a popular sea-bathing resort in the second half of the nineteenth-century. An iron church was built in 1877, and five years later, in 1882, the foundation stone of the permanent church was laid by the Lord Bishop of Liverpool. The building as completed and licensed for worship in 1883, but a weakness was discovered in the foundations which delayed the consecration of the building until 1886. It also prevented the building of a spire to the church and necessitated the installation of tubular bells rather than ordinary cast iron bells. A parish hall was opened in August 1901, the same month in which St Mary’s became a parish in its own right. The foundation stone for an extension to the church was laid in September 1906. An ante-room was added to the parish hall in 1908. St John’s chapel was dedicated as a war memorial in 1920. A north porch was added to the church in 1933, and an annexe added to the hall in 1934.

All trees in churchyard have preservation orders.

The church is cruciform, with a central, crenellated tower with cusped belfry openings. It was originally to have a spire but it was discovered that the structure would not support its weight; as a result the church has a somewhat squat appearance. There is a three-bay clerestory above four-bay nave. At the W end, an early C20 narthex with gabled porches to N and S and a three-gabled W elevation; the central gable is stepped and has a cross finial. The church (including the hall attached at the E end) has two-colour slate roofs with terracotta ridge tiles.

The E, W and transept windows are each a group of three lancets, with roll moulding to the mullions. Nave windows are two-lancet groups, with roll moulding to the mullions and a shared hood-mould with ornamented stops. Buttresses between the nave windows. Clerestory windows are groups of three cusped lancets. A string course runs beneath the windows. There are set-back buttresses at the corners of the tower and the transepts.

Church hall attached at SE corner with windows in three-lancet groups (the central lancet elongated and cusped) with string-course beneath and buttresses between; in end wall (E), group of five lancets, the central lancet cusped. From church hall, S, linked extension to annexe.

Entry is via the NW porch. Corresponding, to the S, a memorial chapel. Between, a narthex, divided from the nave by a glazed screen.

The nave arcade is formed of quatrefoil pillars with roll-moulded capitals. There are compound piers at the crossing. A string course runs beneath the clerestory. The hammer-beam roof is supported on stone corbels.

Within the nave and transepts, fixed pews stand on raised wooden platforms. The nave is divided into three aisles.

The chancel is defined by low stone walls topped with marble, with which the pulpit is integral. There are wrought iron gates at the chancel wall. There are two steps up into the chancel and then there are four more up to the communion rails and a further step up to altar dais. The chancel and sanctuary are floored with Minton tiles. The choir stalls are fixed to raised wooden platforms. The organ is on the N side of the chancel; the wall on the S side is panelled and there is a door to the vestry. Moving into the sanctuary, on the N side is a lancet window, a stone plinth projecting from the wall, and a piscina with a hood mould with ornamented stops. The E wall is panelled. In the S wall is a sedilia with cusped-arched niches divided by marble colonettes and a hood mould with head-stops.

In the E wall of the S transept, near the crossing, a door leads to the vestry and ancillary accommodation. The S side of the S transept has been divided by a pierced wooden screen to form a war memorial chapel. It has a parquet floor and an aisle laid with Minton tiles. On the E side, two steps up to communion rails and a further broad step up to the altar dais, inlaid with mosaic. On the W side, a lancet window and a two-leaf wooden door with stone surround beneath.

The N transept has been cleared of pews, though the raised platforms remain. Where the pews have been removed, polychromatic brickwork is visible – elsewhere covered in paint. Organ pipes project into the S transept on the E side.