St Mary's Church, Woolton

St Mary’s Church stands on Church Road in Woolton, a Liverpool suburb. Built in 1859–60 by R. W. Hughes, it replaced an earlier chapel known as Saint Benet’s. The red-sandstone church has a slate roof and no tower, with pointed windows and buttresses along the west end. Inside, the nave has five bays and large transepts, while the chancel holds chapels and sacristies. The interior features a high altar from 1865, designed by E. W. Pugin, and a pipe organ built by Franklin Lloyd in 1895. The church’s stained glass windows are notable. The east window, by Jean-Baptiste Capronnier, shows the Last Supper with saints linked to the parish’s Benedictine past. Other windows honour families who funded them, including the Jump and Roskell names. A rose window in the north transept centres on Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, brought by Redemptorists in 1866. The Lady Altar window remembers Joanna Simpson, whose £1,000 gift helped build the church. Nearby stands the presbytery, built in 1864 by Pugin, and the former school now used as a parish hall. The churchyard includes war graves from the First and Second World Wars. Woolton’s Catholic community has roots stretching back over 300 years, with priests serving since the mid-19th century. The church remains an active parish within Liverpool’s Inland Family of Parishes.