St Mary's Church, Yealand Conyers

St Mary's Church is a limestone building featuring a five-bay nave, a lower chancel section, a north porch, and a double-gabled bellcote with diagonal buttresses at each corner. The walls carry window openings typical of 19th-century church design, and interior woodwork includes carved details throughout the worship space.

Architect Edward Graham Paley from Lancaster designed the church in 1852 for landowner Richard Gillow of Leighton Hall. The building reflected the growth of Catholic congregations in the area during the 19th century.

The interior displays wooden pews decorated with carved ornaments and a distinctive roof structure featuring crossed timbers above the nave. A special family seating area once set apart the local landowners, showing how social hierarchy shaped the arrangement of worship spaces.

The building holds Grade II listed status and operates jointly with two neighbouring parishes within the Lancaster diocese. Visitors will find it accessible in a small village setting surrounded by open countryside.

A carved sandstone niche above the entrance displays a figure of the Virgin Mary, while the altar rests on green marble columns. The balustrade features alabaster work, a rare detail for country churches of that era.

Location: Yealand Conyers

Inception: 1852

Architects: Edward Graham Paley

Architectural style: Gothic Revival

Website: http://ololcarnforth.org.uk/yealand.htm

GPS coordinates: 54.16050,-2.76140

Latest update: December 14, 2025 15:01