St Mary the Virgin's Church, Leigh

St. Mary's is in the centre of Leigh by the Civic Square, which was originally the market place, next to the library and opposite the town hall. The church was mentioned in documents in the 13th century but the date of its foundation is uncertain. The first church on the site, dedicated to St Peter, was described as the Church of Westleigh in Leigh. Its dedication was changed to St Mary the Virgin at the end of the 14th century. The church straddled the ancient boundary between the townships of Westleigh and Pennington, the nave and churchyard in Westleigh and the chancel in Pennington. For several hundred years it was the mother church for the six townships, Westleigh, Pennington, Bedford,…

The church was rebuilt on the foundations of the original church in hammer-dressed sandstone in the Gothic Revival Perpendicular style. The church has a six-bay nave and two-bay chancel under a continuous roof with a clerestory and crenellated parapet. The bays have three-light aisle windows with rectilinear tracery and hoodmoulds, the clerestory windows have two-light flat-headed arches. There are octagonal pinnacled piers at the east corners of the chancel, either side of the five-light east window. The tower, is also castellated retaining the 16th century studded oak west doors beneath an elliptical arch. The tower has weathered diagonal buttresses and a three-light west window. There…