Church of St Mary is a Grade II listed building in the County Durham local planning authority area, England. First listed on 7 December 1987. Church.
Church of St Mary
- WRENN ID
- stark-span-vermeil
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- County Durham
- Constituency
- City of Durham MP: Mary Kelly Foy (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 7 December 1987
- Type
- Church
- Address
- Church of St Mary, High Street, Shincliffe
- OS grid reference
- NZ 291 407
- Coordinates
- 54.76082, -1.54895
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St Mary is a parish church built in 1851 by George Pickering, with a spire added in 1871 by Walter and Robson. It is constructed from squared sandstone with ashlar dressings and has a Welsh slate roof. The church features a west tower with a spire, a nave with a north aisle and a south porch, and a chancel that includes an organ chamber and vestry on the north side. Designed in the Early English style, the tower is three stages high with angle buttresses, a shouldered north doorway, trefoil-headed lancets, pointed two-light bell openings, and a Lombard frieze below the spire. The tall octagonal broach spire has large lucarnes at its base and smaller lucarnes positioned higher up.
The nave is buttressed and has four bays, with a pointed north door located in the porch, lancets under hoodmoulds, carved gutter brackets, and a steep roof with coped gables. The north aisle mirrors this design and features a sill string and a pent roof. The chancel is lower and narrower, with two bays and buttresses, a sill string, and two lancets in each bay; the east end has clasping buttresses and three stepped lancets, topped by a steep roof with a coped east gable. The gabled porch contains a moulded pointed doorway with an outer order on colonnettes. The organ chamber is covered by a pent roof, while the slightly lower vestry has a shouldered north door, a pointed two-light east window, and a pent roof with a truncated stack.
Inside, the aisle arcade features double-chamfered, pointed arches on cylindrical piers with moulded octagonal bases and capitals. The chancel arch is similar and supported by keeled responds. The nave and chancel have arch-braced king-post roofs. Notable early 20th-century woodwork includes the chancel screen, stalls, and pulpit. There is also a 19th-century octagonal stone font with foliage carving.
Local climate
Church of St Mary receives an average of 750 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 70% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 95% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 35 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 59% of listed buildings. Of these, 20 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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