Church Of St Cuthbert

The Church of St. Cuthbert is a parish church dating to 1870-71, representing a restoration and enlargement of an early 18th-century chapel-of-ease. The chapel stood on the site of a former medieval chapel, and in 1768, the site became a separate parish. The present nave occupies the location of the former nave and chancel. Constructed of coursed squared sandstone with ashlar quoins and dressings, the building features a stone-flagged roof with stone gable copings. It comprises a nave, a west tower, a south porch, a chancel, a north organ chamber, and a vestry.

The gabled porch has a boarded door within a chamfered two-centred arch. The tower has a high plinth and a two-light west window with cusped tracery. There are paired, chamfered, two-centred arched, louvred bell openings with roll-moulded coping. The nave’s porch contains a boarded door within a chamfered two-centred arch. South lancets and a north lancet feature tracery, while a tall, square-headed 18th-century window with two mullioned-and-transomed elliptical-headed lights is centrally placed in the north bay. The lower chancel has a Decorated tracery window on the south and a three-light east window with cusped tracery and dripmould. Deep buttresses are present on the nave, and deep diagonal buttresses on the chancel. Stone cross finials crown the building.

Inside, the walls are of sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings, and the roof is supported by stone corbelled trusses with arch-braced collars, struts, and king-posts. The nave has seven bays, and the chancel has three. A renewed west gallery is present, concealing a wide two-centred tower arch and a narrower wood lintel over a boarded door below. The chancel arch is two-centred and chamfered, with a roll-moulded inner arch supported by corbels. A stone, octagonal font from the 19th century is also present. The church boasts high-quality panelled inner doors made by Thompson of Masham. A Gothic-style priest’s stall commemorates G.S. Ellam, who died in 1905. A Gothic panelled reredos, dating from 1914-1919, serves as a war memorial. The chancel and sanctuary floors are tiled in red, black, and cream. A rood screen, created in 1907 as a memorial to Rev. de Pledge, features a brass memorial plaque detailing the church’s restoration and embellishment through subscription. Other memorials include one to Rev. de Pledge’s third son, a Colonel in the 19th Hussars, who died in 1908, and was designed by Underwood of 14 Baker Street. The organ, dating from 1879, was made by Harrison and Harrison. 19th-century glass includes memorials to John Greenwell of Broomshields and to Revs. Thompson (died 1867) and de Pledge. Two medieval grave covers are set into the west wall, as documented by P.F. Ryder in "The Medieval Slab Grave Cover in County Durham" (Durham, 1985).