You do not expect to find something like this above a West Yorkshire mill town. The Community of the Resurrection was founded in 1892 and moved to Mirfield six years later, a group of Christian Socialists who wanted to be near the industrial north rather than comfortably distant from it, and the buildings they raised on the hillside are extraordinary. The great church was begun in 1911 to a design by Sir Walter Tapper, continued by his son Michael and finished in the 1930s: deeply coursed red sandstone, tunnel vaults, round-arched windows high in the chancel and an apse at the east end, all of it Romanesque and all of it on a scale that makes people go quiet when they walk in.
Around the church are 20 acres of private walled grounds, with orchards and rose gardens and the sort of long views that reward a photographer who is willing to walk. The community still lives and prays here, and that is really the point of the place; a wedding at Mirfield is not a hire of a pretty backdrop so much as an afternoon spent inside somebody’s life’s work. Marriages take place in the Lower Church, which seats around 110 and is licensed for religious ceremonies conducted by the parish priest — civil ceremonies are not held here, and you do not have to be a regular churchgoer to ask.
The reception side is handsomer than you might imagine. The Great Hall seats up to 102 beneath a high arched ceiling, with an Eric Gill roundel and a Guy Reid sculpture for company, and there is a separate bar and a quieter room for anyone who needs five minutes. Catering runs from a traditional three-course wedding breakfast through to hot sandwiches and homemade pizzas later on, and the kitchen is genuinely happy to work across Mediterranean, North African, Greek and Arabic menus. There is bed and breakfast accommodation on site, and only one wedding at a time.
Music in the church and in the hall
The church is a gift for anything acoustic. A vaulted Romanesque interior gives you a long, generous reverberation, so a string trio, a harpist, a solo voice or a gospel choir will sound enormous with no amplification at all; anything with a drum kit, on the other hand, is better saved for later in the day. The Great Hall is where the evening happens, and its arched ceiling means a band should arrive expecting a lively, resonant room rather than a dead one — a group who know how to play a hall like this will be worth every penny.
How the day unfolds
Most couples take the ceremony in the afternoon, spill out into the gardens for drinks and photographs while the light is good, then move across for dinner and dancing in the Great Hall. Because the site is exclusively yours there is no rush between the stages of the day, but it is a monastery as well as a venue, so ask early about the hour the music is expected to stop and about where a band can park and load in — the buildings sit on a slope, and that is worth knowing in advance rather than on the day.
Bands available in West Yorkshire and perfectly at home in a venue like this.
More live music in West Yorkshire.
- West Yorkshire Wedding Bands
- West Yorkshire Events Bands
- Tribute Acts in West Yorkshire
- Wedding DJs in West Yorkshire
- Corporate Entertainment in West Yorkshire
Worth reading before you book: Sound Limiters Explained. More questions answered on our England & Wales FAQs.