St Mary the Virgin's Church, Walney

St Mary the Virgin’s Church stands on Walney Island in Barrow-in-Furness, a short ferry ride from the mainland. The present building replaced an earlier 17th-century chapel in 1907–08, when the island’s population rose from about five hundred to five thousand within a dozen years. The architects Austin and Paley designed the larger church after their predecessors Sharpe and Paley had rebuilt the earlier structure in 1852–53. In 1930–31 the same practice added a new bay, vestry and porch, though plans for a central tower were never carried out. The church is built of local sandstone under roofs of tile, slate and lead, its Gothic Revival style showing Perpendicular details throughout. Inside, a five-bay nave with clerestory leads to north and south aisles, transepts and a two-bay chancel with chapel and vestry. The east window, with five lights and a crenellated transom, was designed by R. R. Nichol around 1990, while the octagonal font and oak pulpit date from the early 20th century. Visitors enter through the south porch or the west door beneath a four-light window and quatrefoil above. The two-manual pipe organ by Wadsworth and Company from Manchester stands in the north aisle, and stained glass fills the transept and chapel windows. The crossing space remains open, framed by buttresses where the intended tower would have risen.