Church Of St John The Evangelist

Church of St John the Evangelist

This parish church stands on Front Street at Kirk Merrington, Spennymoor. It is a rebuilt structure of 1850–1851 designed by George Pickering, which incorporates part of the original Norman church's north wall.

The exterior is constructed of sandstone rubble, mostly roughly coursed and squared, with an ashlar plinth (except at the chancel) and ashlar quoins and dressings. The roof is of graduated Lakeland slates with stone gable copings. The building comprises a nave with a central tower and north transept, and a three-bay chancel, all executed in Norman style.

The entrance is on the first bay of the nave and features a boarded door with bifurcated hinges. This sits within an arch of three orders decorated with chevron mouldings beneath a dogtooth dripmould. An impost string supports a steeply pitched gabled projection above. The tower occupies the third bay and has a roll-moulded surround to a high window. The upper stages of the tower carry a single small window and paired lights with a central shaft in round-headed belfry arches, beneath a corbel table and parapet. The flanking bays contain slightly lower windows with nook-shafts and moulded heads; head-corbels appear at the eaves except in the tower. The chancel features more regular masonry, with a priest's door on the left under a billet-moulded round arch, and similar moulding over two south windows. The east window is a triple arcaded composition with nook-shafts and dripmould; a single west window with a roll-moulded head on nook-shafts faces the opposite direction. Clasping buttresses with offsets support the chancel.

The roof is steeply pitched and L-plan in form across the nave and transept, interrupted by the tower; the chancel roof is lower-pitched. A stone cross finial crowns the building.

Interior

The walls are finished in painted plaster with ashlar dressings above a boarded dado. Three roof types appear: arch-braced construction on stone corbels in the nave and transept, except where a flat beamed ceiling covers the tower; stop-chamfered beams on the wall-plate in the chancel support rafters with cambered tops. Four wide stone arches decorated with chevron and roll mouldings on shafts and pilasters support the tower and provide access to the north transept and chancel; other mouldings include billet, ball, and nailhead patterns. Capitals and corbels are scalloped, many decorated with paterae. Windows are deeply splayed with stepped sills; those in the chancel have chevron-moulded surrounds on the south side and alternate-block jambs; the east window features a chevron-moulded sill projection. The floor is stone-flagged.

A high-quality boarded west screen and door below a gallery occupy the nave, with a vestry in the west bay opposite the entrance. The most significant interior feature is an important chancel screen in the style associated with Bishop Cosin (1660–1670). This comprises a panelled dado, above which skittle balusters support paired arches with cusped tracery. A rinceau frieze runs beneath a dentilled cornice with classical moulding. The principal vertical members are enriched with carved fruit and flowers; a top swell cartouche is flanked by scrolls and swags. Skittle balusters also support a flat-topped communion rail. Two box pews with poppyheads in the chancel and some detached pew-ends (two flanking the communion rail) are also in Cosin's style, retaining many original iron hinges and latches. An Eden family box pew of 19th-century date occupies the transept. 19th-century softwood pews with fleur-de-lys-shaped ends stand elsewhere, some bearing faint traces of painted numbers; a square pulpit of similar date in panelled wood now resides in the transept. An octagonal boarded pulpit with Gothic blind tracery is also present.

Glazing is mostly clear. The north nave contains a 19th-century medallion pattern, with a similar style opposite dated 1906; the east window depicts scenes from the life of St Aidan.

A pedestal and bowl font, possibly 17th-century, was restored from the vicarage garden and features a scrolled cover. (Pickering's original font is now in the Church of St Peter, Byers Green, Spennymoor.) A wood altar table, probably 17th-century with later restoration, is also present. The church contains a Harrison and Harrison organ.

Monuments include a reused crocketed 14th-century stone frame on the north chancel wall bearing a brass with stencilled decoration to Sir Robert Johnson Eden, died 1844. A large Frosterley marble slab in the chancel floor is partly obscured by a box pew, suggesting it formed part of the original chancel. Stones resited in the Eden pew include a probable 13th-century cross slab decorated with spade and sword, a tegulated coped slab, and a stone fragment inscribed "his blood by God be shed". A classical wall monument in white on black marble by G. Green of Newcastle commemorates John Smith Esq., died 1832, who bequeathed £200 for ten widows of the parish.

Historical note: the church is remarkable for having withstood a siege in 1143–1146, when the intruding bishop William Cumyn is said to have dug a ditch around it.