Church Heritage Record 613326

West tower (formerly with spire), broad aisle less nave with small transepts; chancel with north organ chamber and vestry and south vestry.

The church was built to the designs of John and Benjamin Green. The spacious site was given by Bishop van Mildert, the foundation stone was laid by Archdeacon Thorp on 18 November 1834 and the church was consecrated by Bishop van Mildert of Durham on 22 December 1835. The church was altered in 1882-90, the south vestry was added in 1892, and the chancel was added in 1905-9.

John Green (1787-1852) and his son Benjamin (c.1811-1858) had an extensive practice as architects and civil engineers in Northumberland and Durham. At first John Green joined his father as a carpenter and agricultural implement maker in his birthplace of Nafferton, and later they moved to Corbridge. Here the business extended to building, and in about 1820 Green went to Newcastle to practise as an architect. Both his sons became architects, and Benjamin joined his father after being a pupil of the elder Pugin. They designed several Gothic churches together and ruthlessly altered some old ones. They were perhaps more proficient in the neo-classical and, in particular, the Grecian style. They also designed railway bridges, stations and farmhouses. Holy Trinity Stockton comes about halfway through their years of practice.

The church is built in an eclectic Gothic style to a plan which is typical of the "Commissioners" churches of the period - essentially a large rectangular box with galleries on three sides, a shallow chancel (and here shallow transepts also) at the east end and a prominent tower at the west end which also houses the stair to the galleries. This simple form was embellished with pierced arcaded parapets, pinnacles on all corners and gables, and a spire on the west tower which rose, it is said, to a height of 200 feet. 

The tower is square in plan, all of one stage internally since it houses the staircase to the gallery. In the west face there is a doorway with a moulded arch under a gablet (the linenfold panelled door itself a replacement of 1935). Above this is a four-light window with cusped geometrical tracery. Two-light windows in the north and south walls have trefoils in the head and are of the same pattern as windows in the side walls of the nave. The corners have set-back angle buttresses terminating in pinnacles. At this point the tower becomes octagonal, and there is a clock face under a stone gablet in the west face. Here the tower now stops. Until 1957 it continued with a tall octagonal lantern stage with two-light openings in each direction and small flying buttresses linking the pinnacles to the main structure. This had a pierced arcaded parapet within which rose a slender stone spire with three tiers of lucarnes in the principal faces, a strong feature of the townscape which managed to combine the dignified severity of father Green's character with the artistic sensibilities of his son.

The nave is broad and set under a low-pitched roof. In the west wall each side of the tower is a doorway with a single-light window above. It is worth mentioning here that the doors throughout the church mostly dating from early in the 20th century, are all of thick oak timbers of the best quality with good iron latches and furniture. Along the wall-heads run parapets with pierced arcading and at each corner is an octagonal pinnacle. The windows are of two lights with trefoil in the head and they rise to a considerable height to light the former side galleries as well as the areas below them. The bays are marked by slender gabletted buttresses. The shallow transepts have details similar to those of the nave.

The chancel was extended eastwards in 1906-9. Although its paired two-light windows in the north and south walls have tracery of a later period than the nave windows, the parapet and pinnacles are as before. On the south side is a vestry under a low pitched roof with a south doorway under a gabled porch and lancet windows. On the north side there is a cross-gabled orgen chamber with a low vestry to the east of it. The east window of the chancel is of three broad lights with cusped ogee heads and late Perpendicular tracery.

The tower contains a large entrance lobby with a stone paved floor and a stone staircase carried on iron columns rising round all four walls to the gallery, which is reached by a door above the inner door of the porch. The inner door leads into a draught lobby within the church. The nave has stone paved alleys with wooden platforms under the pews and gratings for the heating pierced with quatrefoils stamped by R. Watson of Newcastle. The walls are plastered and painted and the roof is an open timber construction with tie-beams spanning the great width and queen posts above with cusped arcading and tracery filling the spaces between. The west gallery has an arcaded front (and there were until the 1940's galleries along the north and south walls also).

At the east end of the north and south walls of the nave tall arches with shafted responds and complicated mouldings open into tall but relatively constricted transeptal spaces. That on the north is furnished as a baptistery and contains the large marble font, and that on the south is furnished as a chapel with an altar under the south window. The transepts, and indeed most of the eastern parts of the church, are panelled with oak traceried panelling dating from c.1920-35 and forming part of an enrichment of the building provided by the Ropner family.

The chancel arch is of similar design to the arches opening into the transepts, but much wider, and there are three steps up from the nave to the level of the choir, with a low stone screen on each side into which the pulpit is incorporated on the north. The floor of the chancel is paved with red tiles and the sanctuary floor is laid with red and green marble paving. On the north an arch opens into the organ chamber behind the choirstalls and on the south is a door to the later vestry.

There is also a door to the vestry on the north. There is one step at the communion rails and then two more up to the footpace of the altar. There are windows in the north and south walls of the sanctuary but the whole chancel is dominated by the stained glass in the east window depicting The Ascension in vivid colours. The chancel roof is panelled and painted blue with white ribs and gold florets along the cornices. There are three plain stone sedilia and a piscina in the south wall of the sanctuary.