[2] As a boy Redfern showed a taste for art by carving and modeling from the woodcuts of illustrated papers.

His first work exhibited at the Royal Academy, Cain and Abel (1859), attracted the notice of John Henry Foley.

They were rescued by George Edmund Street[3] and included in his design for Saint Andrew's church at East Heslerton in North Yorkshire.

Among his works are 60 statues on the west front of Salisbury Cathedral; the statues of the Apostles at Ely; groups of figures on the reredos and statues of saints in the south porch at Gloucester Cathedral;[4] Our Lord in majesty in the chapter-house at Westminster; an elaborate reredos, representing the crucifixion, with the martyrdoms of St. Peter and St. Andrew, in St. Andrew's Church, Wells Street; the entombment in the Digby mortuary chapel, Sherborne; and Expulsion from Eden at St Leonard's Church, Bridgnorth in Shropshire.

After Redfern's death it was said that his original statues were of a higher quality than their eventual metal realizations which were created by Francis Skidmore of Coventry.