By the 1830s Britain had a very small number of buildings designed in a revival of Norman architecture, which is a form of northern European Romanesque, but these do not seem to have been a direct influence on Losh either.

In the churchyard is a mausoleum in which is a life-size marble statue of Katherine Losh that was sculpted by David Dunbar based on a sketch supplied by Sara.

She designed the chancel with a freestanding altar, allowing the priest to face his congregation as he presided at the Eucharist.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti admired Losh's works in Wreay and described St Mary's church as "extraordinary architectural works" with "a church of a byzantine style and other things ... full of beauty and imaginative detail, though extremely severe and simple" and "much more original than the things done by the young architects now.

Many are of plants or animals: birds, insects, flowers, foliage, corn ears,[10] and a recurring motif of pine cones.

[10] In the architecture and decorative arts of the early 1840s, St Mary's church at Wreay is pioneering and seems to be unique.