Church Heritage Record 607148

Four-bay aisled nave with west ball-cote; two-bay chancel flanked by a chapel on the south and vestries on the north.

The walls are of red sandstone, the roofs covered with slates.

The church is unobtrusive; it was originally intended to have a tower, but this was not achieved because of lack of funds. As a result, the horizontal emphasis is stronger than the vertical, and the church makes little impression on the townscape of Penrith. It is, however, agreeably situated in its large park-like churchyard which in itself forms a pleasant contrast to the crowded tangle of streets which forms the centre of the town nearby.

The church is a straightforward essay in the late Decorated style, with sone Perpendicular features (such as the east window tracery) which may be later improvements. It is a surprisingly scholarly attempt at this date. The west front is symmetrical about a narrow but very prominent central buttress; on each side of this in the nave wall is a two-light window with cusped lights and a pair of panels in the tracery above, and above these are small niches which seen never to have had statues. The aisle windows, beyond buttresses, are lower than the nave windows, but of much the same proportions. On top of the central buttress stands the small octagonal bell-cote, supported by corbelling carved as angels.

The north and south sides of the nave are symmetrical, of four bays with two-light windows in each bay much like those in the west wall. There is no clerestory, so that a large expanse of roof is apparent, broken only by a small line of stonework about six inches high; the aisle roofs are at a less steep pitch than the slopes of the nave roof. The south porch stands in the predictable place, the second bay from the west, and has a plain arched doorway and small lancets in the side walls.

The south chapel of the chancel continues the line of the south aisle of the nave on plan, but is slightly lower in elevation (so little indeed as to make no difference). The line of the chancel roof also is only just lower than the sridge of the nave roof. This all serves to emphasize the horizontal elements of the design. The cast window of the south chapel is of three lights with a quatrefoil in the tracery above. The chapel stops short of the cast wall of the chancel, allowing space for a three-light window in the south wall to light the sanctuary.

The east wall of the chancel is chiefly taken up by the large five-light east window, the main lights of which have cusped heads while the uprights continue up through the tracery to the arched surround. The tracery is partly intersectingand partly panel. The vestry on the north side, unlike the south chapel, does come as far east as the chancel wall and, perhaps to show its less formal function, has a square-headed Tudor window in the east wall gabled choir vestry was added in 1906.

The four bays of the nave arcades are very wide in proportion to their height and have moulded arches carried on octagonal piers with castellated capitals. The label stops are carved as heads with singularly blank expressions. Although there is no space for a clerestory (and this is an aesthetic defect as well as a practical one), the recently whitened walls help to keep the church from being gloony, as well as contrasting with the red-grey stonework and the dark woodwork. Moreover, the majority of windows have clear glass. The roof, of pine stained very dark, is carried on stone corbels, and has arch braces interrupted by short boans with ends carved as angels giving the effect of incipient hannerbeans. The spandrels have pierced quatrefoils. The roof structures are thin, with arch braces only at each bay. The font stands by the south door.

The tall wide chancel arch makes a slight division between nave and chancel, and is re-inforced by the western sides of the priest's stalls which are treated as a low screen. A modern oak lectern of part-classical and part-Jacobean inspiration stands on the left and the big stone pulpit on the right. The screen of the south chancel chapel follows the simple design of the screen to the west front of the organ on the opposite side of the chancel.

The character of the chancel derives from a refurnishing carried out about 1900 at which time the organ was noved to the north aisle, and put behind arches to which its case bears no relationship at all. The floor is paved with green, black and white marble and the low choirstalls and priest's stalls in heavy (but finely-detailed) oak were presented. The sanctuary is panolled with oak, with the same trefoiled tracery of simple design as the screen to the south chapel.