Church Heritage Record 625118

5-bay nave and north aisle, choir vestry, sanctuary, chancel, link to parish rooms.

Nave 11.5m (35ft) x 37m (114ft) north aisle 7m (22ft) x 32.5m (100ft).

The church was built in 1886 to the designs of the Diocesan Architect Robert James Johnson (1832-1892). Johnson was a pupil and partner of Dobson and Austin and came to develop a distinctive style with a 15th-century Perpendicular influence Johnson worked throughout the diocese of Newcastle and also designed some fittings for the Cathedral.

In 1898 twin double doors and steps were added at the west end. A building was added to the south of the church in 1930 and is used as a hall. This was itself extended in 1984 to provide a small chapel, kitchen, and toilets, and provided with a new entrance. The church was damaged by an arson attack in 1970, particularly the north aisle, bell turret, choir vestry and organ. The church at one time used to abut terraced houses and the rendered east gable is evidence of this.

The church is seen to most advantage from the west, where despite the loss of the upper part of the turret the west front is still a pleasing composition. The nave wall is pierced by a single large round-headed four-light window of two separate tall pointed lights with mullions, a transom and quatrefoils in the head, very open and light. Beneath this is a blind arcade of eight bays with delicate cusped tracery, these features flanked by pointed doorways with continuous mouldings (added in 1898, as were the steps). The hood-moulds of these continue under the window sill and then at the same height around the nave and aisle. The nave has angle buttresses of three weak weatherings, and a cross finial.

Projecting from the north aisle west wall is an apsidal baptistery with a moulded parapet and a tall two-light west window and a single light in the north side walls, round-arched beneath square heads. There is a doorway in the south side wall.  Sandwiched between the aisle, baptistery and projecting nave is the octagonal turret, which since the fire of 1970 is missing its belfry stage. Despite this, this is a striking feature of fine dimensions, of three stages with a crenellated parapet. 

The north aisle wall has another doorway in the westernmost bay, the hood-mould stepping up and over it. The frame of the doorway projects from the wall like a thick square buttress, with a shield enclosed by another string-course which again steps up and over it. To the east of this the fenestration is identical to that in the nave south wall, of four-light round-headed windows within rectangular frames, with the exception of the east bay which has a two-light, the reason for this being another doorway adjacent to this. This bay is framed by buttresses of three weak weatherings.

The south-eastern bay of the nave is taken up by a link to the hall, a simple stone building with domestic windows projecting off to the south, with a brick extension to the east of 1984. There is a two-light square window above the door to the link, with stained glass.

The view from the north-west is less harmonious, the east walls of the chancel and vestry clearly having been built up against the houses that previously stood there, the vestry roof sloping up towards the chancel behind the remains of a wall. The vestry north wall has a square-headed four-light, a smaller version of the nave and aisle windows. The chancel east window is of three lights with cusped foiled heads, set in the eastern face of the asymmetrically apsidal wall.

The interior is whitewashed, bright and spacious. The elegant aisle arcade is of five bays, composed of tall slim octagonal piers with moulded capitals carrying broad round headed arches. Plain corbels support an arch-braced roof of dark-stained beams, the panelled ceiling above painted red. The roof is coved to the east wall just above the window, which with its highly coloured stained glass and stone reredos beneath flanked by oak panelling makes for a very dignified focus. The aisles between the banks of pews are laid with red linoleum, mostly covered with blue carpet. 

The north aisle is bare of pews and has parquetry flooring. The aisle ceiling is flat and of light wood, also arch braced but much simpler, installed after the fire of 1970. The east end of the north aisle is used for storage. A round-headed door at the east end of the aisle gives access to the vestry, and as noted above a further doorway adjacent to this gives access from outside.

There is one step up to the chancel and a further three to the sanctuary, which has a stone floor with red tile detailing (covered with carpet).  The chancel is also internally canted, with the stained glass east window appearing to be central in the wall, a clever device. There is a stone piscina with a trefoil head set into the oak panelling on the south side of the sanctuary.