Church Of St Paul

The Church of St Paul is a parish church built in 1879 by the architectural firm Austin, Johnson and Hicks from Newcastle, commissioned by patrons John and Edward Joicey. It is constructed of dressed sandstone with graduated green slate roofs and features an austere Perpendicular style. The church has a continuous, aisleless nave and chancel, along with north and south transepts, a south porch on the nave, and two north vestries on the chancel. An extruded bell tower with a spire is positioned between the chancel and the south transept.

The structure includes a 4-bay nave and a 2-bay chancel under a continuous roof, with the chancel being taller due to the slope of the ground. It has a chamfered plinth and sill bands, and the windows are fitted with leaded panes, iron glazing bars, and cusped trefoil-headed lights. The nave features a tall pointed 4-light west window and two square-headed 4-light windows on the north and south sides, along with a pointed south doorway in the porch. The chancel windows are set high, including 3- and 2-light square-headed windows on the south and a pointed 3-light window on the angle-buttressed east end. The steeply-pitched roof extends at the west end of the nave to create a pent roof over a wide porch, which has a carved wood screen with shaped bench-ends and a 3-centred arch.

The lower twin-gabled and angle-buttressed transepts each contain two 3-light pointed windows beneath hoodmoulds. The gabled choir vestry features a Tudor-arched doorway and a 2-light mullioned window, while the vicar's vestry to the east has a 5-light mullioned window and a pent roof that extends directly from the chancel roof. The bell tower is tall and slender, with an octagonal plan on a square base, comprising two stages plus a belfry and spire. The belfry has square-headed 2-light openings and an embattled parapet, topped with a short octagonal stone spire.

Inside, the church is plain and plastered, with a wide double-chamfered chancel arch that dies into the wall. Two-bay arcades with similar arches and central octagonal piers separate the transepts from the nave. The chancel is panelled with a mosaic sanctuary floor, and the east window, created by C.E. Kempe of London in 1892, adds to the interior's character. A marble World War I memorial from 1921 is located in the nave, and the nave and chancel feature slightly-pointed, compartmented barrel roofs.