Church of St Agnes Leeds, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

LEEDS

SE33SW STONEY ROCK LANE, Sheepscar 714-1/11/1113 (North West side) 05/08/76 Church of St Agnes

II

Anglican church. 1886-7. By Kelly and Birchall of Leeds, with alterations and additions by Lord Grimthorpe. Coursed stone, ashlar dressings. Gothic Revival style. PLAN: nave and chancel under one steeply-pitched roof with gable ends. Orientations are ritual. EXTERIOR: low aisles with flat-headed windows with cusped heads to lights and 2-light clerestory windows, circular chancel clerestory window with foundation stone below laid by Mrs Boyd Carpenter, wife of the Bishop of Ripon, 9 July 1887. Large 5-light east window with geometric tracery, 4-light west window. Very slim SE bell tower with buttresses up to belfry with lancets, octagonal stage above with short stone spire. Gabled SW porch in stone with cusped pointed arch. INTERIOR: 4-bay nave with squat octagonal piers and wide chamfered arches, rafter roof with twisted tie bars, aisles have cusped roof trusses supported on stone corbels; no arch to 1-bay chancel with panelled barrel-vaulted ceiling; organ on NE, vestry on SE. Reredos made 1891 of Burmantofts faience and coloured tiles, 3 cusped arches in moulded frame with angels' heads and pinnacles, original colours and details obscured by coat of white gloss paint. A terracotta memorial below W window in the same style commemorates James Holroyd, 1839-1890, founder of the Burmantofts Faience Works, erected 'BY HIS EMPLOYEES'; tiled walls below moulded string on each side. FITTINGS: moulded bench pews, the front row with pierced fronts; pulpit removed; font in SW corner given by the Sunday School scholars, octagonal stem and bowl of green and brown polished fossiliferous marble; brass eagle lectern given by the Whalley family, 1918 and 1931. War memorial at E end of S nave aisle from St Stephen's church. STAINED GLASS: the west window stained glass is from the Church of St Stephen (demolished), 1851, and has early medieval-style figures. The east window is dedicated to the memory of Willard Stansfield, the first vicar, 1889-1927. HISTORICAL NOTE: a mission church was built in Shakespeare Street in 1877 to serve the increasing population in the parish of St Stephen. By 1881 the population was about 4,000, many working for the James Holroyd's Leeds Fireclay Company at the Burmantofts Works. In 1885 the Rev Willard Stansfield

described the population as: '..entirely of the artisan class. We can boast of no palatial edifices or detached villas... the area of our district is by no means large, yet we have within our boundary, on the SW the Fever Hospital, on the NW the Leeds Cemetery, on the NE the Smallpox Hospital, and on the SE... hideous chimneys which belch forth over the place dense and sometimes choking filthy smoke, while as a tower for the whole we have on the north the Acme of Nuisance, better known as the Public Destructor' (speech quoted in the Centenary Booklet). Land was bought for the new church in 1886 and in 1887 Lord Grimthorpe suggested alterations and additions to the plans; he gave »500 towards the cost. During 1888 »20 towards the cost of the font was raised in pennies and halfpennies by the Sunday School scholars. (Burmantofts History Group: Centenary of St Agnes' Church Burmantofts, 1889-1989: 1989-).

Listing NGR: SE3187234397