The spectacular face is rigidly symmetrical and arrayed with pinnacles, niches and quatrefoils. A central pitch in the broad tripartite façade alludes to the traditional gothic gable and three tall lancet windows are lashed together within a vaulting pointed arch. Tall buttresses are clasped to the surface, each accentuated by a sharp pinnacle set above. The naïve use of gothic forms is representative of the tentative beginnings of the Gothic Revival, a phase commonly known as "Georgian Gothick."
Inside, the box-like nave is illuminated by lancet windows of mostly clear glass. The flat ceiling is the antithesis of the soaring gothic vault and the chancel is merely a shallow recess in the west wall. Evidently the architect had not yet acquired the Victorian conviction that a division between spiritual and worldly domains should be expressed by a distinct nave and chancel. Nevertheless, the chancel is furnished with an elaborate reredos - a many-arched wooden structure replete with statues of northern saints. There is no great window, but the reredos is flanked by narrow stained-glass windows and the west wall is articulated with a framework of applied decoration that sketches out a display of gothic forms. Down the south wall are doors leading to the confessionals. Each terminates with a pointed arch containing sculptural emblems. A purgatorial theme is introduced by the macabre image of a skull wreathed in creeping foliage. Typically for a Georgian church, a gallery spans the rear. Galleries fell into disrepute later in the 19th century, but were essential for accommodating the large numbers of Irish migrants who flooded into industrial northern parishes.
St. Mary's is grand for a Catholic church built so soon after the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829. Designed by Ignatius Bonomi (1781-1870) the leading architect in County Durham, its exuberant design is a testament to the increasing tolerance and prosperity experienced by Catholics after legal restrictions on their faith had been lifted. This grandeur, however, is reserved for the façade of dressed stone. The church was conceived as a two-dimensional street frontage and was originally bounded by houses. The rest of the bulky nave is executed in rough magnesian limestone.1 The demolition of the houses to the north permitted the addition of a transept, which is internally linked to the nave by paired arches springing from a single column. Two original windows were filled in to make way for the transept arches, and their outlines are just visible on the north wall of the nave.
St. Mary's illustrates the genesis of the Gothic Revival. Victorian architects would soon formulate more rigid strictures as to the correct application of gothic forms and liturgical planning, but at this date the grammar of medieval architecture was not fully understood.2 Bonomi was primarily a classicist and St. Mary's is essentially a classical preaching box hidden behind a gothic façade, which like a piece of stage scenery summons up the requisite air of medievalism. Yet the choice of style was significant. Gothic suggested continuity with the universal Catholic Church of the middle ages. St. Mary's thereby provided a secure foundation for the resurgence of Catholicism in Sunderland.
1 - Due to shortage of money. See Crosby, J.H. (1987) Ignacious Bonomi of Durham, Architect.
2 - Figures such as A.W.N. Pugin and members of the Ecclesiological Society regarded Gothic as the only style for a Christian country. Through archaeological study they developed a more accurate understanding of medieval Gothic.
