Church Of St Cuthbert

The Church of St Cuthbert is a parish church dating from 1858-63, designed by E.R. Robson. It is built of coursed squared sandstone with an ashlar plinth and dressings, and has a dark slate roof with diaper patterns in light slate. The church is in the Early English style, with French influence.

The church consists of a north-west tower, a nave and chancel with a south aisle, and a north vestry. The three-stage tower has paired west doors, flanked by a central statue of St Cuthbert, housed within a wide two-centred arch with a flower-carved band under a dripmould; the tympanum features a carved Christ in Majesty flanked by symbols of the Evangelists. The second stage has two tall slits under gabled dripmoulds, and the top stage has a tall, shafted belfry opening of three orders under a zig-zag moulding. Strings are present at each stage, the second crocketed and the third moulded. A square stair turret to the left has an arcaded second stage under a tall conical stone roof, and the tower roof is saddle-back with crocketed gable copings. The set-back west front features a large wheel window over three lancets, separated by a buttress from the aisle. Aisle windows are groups of two or three lancets with foiled roundels over them. The north nave windows have paired cusped lancets under quatrefoils, with five similar groupings in the apse. Drip strings are present, the nave’s below the foils. Buttresses on the aisle are particularly massive. The roof is steeply pitched, conical over the apse. An Ordnance Survey bench mark is located on the north face of the west buttress.

The interior has brick walls with an ashlar band and dressings, painted, and a waggon roof with king-post trusses. A three-bay arcade features pink granite columns with crocketed capitals, and paired bracketed shafts on square ashlar piers at either end. A zig-zag moulding appears on the two-centred arches and the narrower arch of the south-east organ chamber. The tower’s porch has a ribbed vault and a roll-moulded door; the inner arch of the door has four orders. Windows have rere arches, aisle windows are cusped on colonettes, and apse windows are on Frosterley marble shafts, all with dripmoulds. An aumbry is located in the north chancel wall, and a sedilia is in the south, the latter featuring crocketing. The octagonal font sits on four shafts and has a banded flat cover. Glass in the west windows depicts the Te Deum and is signed T.E. CURTIS / WARD AND HUGHES LONDON 1899 in the lower lancet. The west aisle has two windows by the same firm commemorating members of the Barnes family. The east bay of the aisle contains three lights depicting the miracle of loaves and fishes, the Light of the World, and the Good Shepherd, signed WAILES AND STRANG ARTISTS Newcastle upon Tyne, and commemorating members of the Cherry family.