Church Of St Cuthbert

The Church of St Cuthbert is a parish church dating to 1832, likely designed by William Ramshaw for Bishop van Mildert. It was restored, and the chancel rebuilt, between 1866 and 1867 by J. Ross of Darlington. The church is constructed of thin courses of squared sandstone rubble, with pecked coursed squared sandstone for the chancel, and ashlar dressings and a plinth. It has a Welsh slate roof with stone gable copings. The building comprises a nave with a west tower, a chancel, a north vestry, and an organ chamber. The chancel is in the Decorated style.

The two-stage tower features a Tudor-arched south door with studded battens in a double-chamfered surround with a dripmould; the arms of Bishop van Mildert are displayed above the door. A round-headed, double-chamfered belfry louvre sits above a clock in the second stage, surmounted by a corbelled flat-coped parapet. The nave has two bays with label moulds over tall windows containing two round-headed lights. A similar window is located on the west side. The chancel has two bays with windows displaying Decorated tracery, featuring two round-headed lights, and a three-light east window with a head-stopped dripmould. Coped buttresses with offsets define the bays, with angle buttresses at the east end and at the first stage of the tower. The steeply-pitched chancel roof has moulded kneelers and stone cross finials, while the tower is topped by a tall wind vane of scrolled wrought iron.

Inside, the plastered walls have a boarded dado, with ashlar dressings in the chancel. The nave has a low-pitched panelled roof supported by bracketed tie beams; the chancel has a similarly panelled roof on large leaf and angel corbels. The tower ceiling is also panelled. A head-stopped dripmould extends over the two-centred chamfered chancel arch, which lacks capitals; naturalistic capitals and corbels are on the shafts of the inner arch. A foliage-stopped dripmould features over the organ arch to the north of the chancel arch. A wide organ arch and a shouldered vestry door are found in the chancel. A chamfered round tower arch is also present. The floors are of stone, laid in a square-and-diamond pattern, with some matching tiles at the west end. The chancel has a Gothic-style tiled floor. The church contains panelled pews dating to 1867, with shaped ends and poppyheads on the choir stalls. A side altar originates from St. Luke's, Darlington, and features a reredos re-using 17th-century panelling from Brancepeth church. The 1979 west window is by Septimus Waugh; the chancel windows commemorate Henry Stobart, a coalowner who died in 1866. An octagonal stone font was given by Bishop Thorpe.