Church Of St Columba

The Church of St Columba, Middlesbrough, was built in 1900-02 by Temple Moore, designed to fit its irregular site. It is constructed of brick in English bond, with sparse sandstone dressings and a Welsh slate roof. The building is of Early English style, with a roughly octagonal plan, disoriented in terms of ritual layout. It comprises a continuous aisled nave and chancel, an east chapel, a south porch, and a west tower with a west porch.

The hexagonal-plan, three-stage tower has a slightly projecting gabled porch with double doors in a Caernarvon-headed opening, a stepped surround, and a blind fanlight. A canted stair turret, extending above the parapet and featuring slit lights with iron grilles, is located to the right of the porch. The middle stage of the tower has pointed windows in double-chamfered surrounds under hoodmoulds, and oculi in similar surrounds are set into the top stage. A straight, corbelled parapet with watershots tops the tower, and a steeply-pitched hipped roof includes raking dormers with louvred bell-openings and a central bronze cross finial.

The main body of the church consists of a 3-bay nave/chancel with similar windows, paired in the clerestory and with iron grilles. Canted aisles and transepts are set under three gables. A lower, canted south porch projects from the middle bay, with a similar window flanking boarded round-headed doors. Battered brickwork fills the angles between the aisles and nave, and five stepped lights are situated at the east end, topped with a cross finial. The 4-bay east chapel features a two-span roof and similar windows.

Internally, the brick walls are painted with stone dressings. Plain, three-bay nave/chancel arcades run alongside similar arcades between the chancel and chapel, featuring slender octagonal piers, moulded capitals and bases. Further similar arcades are present between the transepts and aisles, and at the tower arch. A vaulted boarded ceiling with moulded ribs and carved bosses springs from stepped brick vaulting shafts in the nave and chancel. Lateral barrel-vaulted aisles and transepts are also present. A carved wood rood beam with weepers sits in the middle bay of the chancel/chapel arcade, positioned under a richly-carved canopy supported on angel brackets. A 1927, two-tier carved wood reredos depicts figures of saints and angels in canopied niches, with a central figure of the Virgin. Carved wood choir stalls and communion rails incorporate bronze turned balusters. An Early Victorian, hexagonal pulpit, painted with northern saints on colonnettes and a central vaulted stem, features traceried panelled sides. A marble font from 1902 stands on a circular arcade with stiff-leaf capitals and an octagonal step. The west bay of the nave and aisles has been filled by a late 20th-century narthex and organ gallery designed by R. Simms (York).