Church Of St Cuthbert

Church of St Cuthbert

This church was built around 1763 by Robert Corney, an architect and builder from Coatham, though the lower part of the tower dates from 1731. A late 18th-century porch was added, followed by a vestry in 1855. The church stands on the site of an Anglo-Saxon church and adjoins a mausoleum of 1740.

The building is constructed in vertically-tooled sandstone ashlar with dressed sandstone to the lower three stages of the tower. The roofs are covered in Lakeland slate, lead and felt. The design follows the Palladian style.

The church comprises a west tower, an aisled nave with south porch, and a chancel with a north tomb chamber and vestry. The four-stage tower has a chamfered plinth and a vice and buttress set in the angles between the tower and nave. The north face of the tower contains a four-panel door. Above this is a circular west window with a plain surround and leaded glazing, and higher still is a round-headed window with a keystone, also with leaded glazing. The top stage has chamfered quoins and louvred round-headed bell openings with keystones. A cornice on consoles supports a straight parapet with obelisk angle finials, each standing on four spheres.

The four-bay nave has a projecting porch in the western bay. The porch features three-panel double doors in an architrave with double keystones, set beneath a pediment on consoles. The porch has a straight parapet with moulded copings and a flat roof. Behind the porch is a taller, pedimented doorway in a round-headed recess, now partly obscured. Round-headed windows with plain inset surrounds and aprons sit in tall recesses with moulded impost bands. The glazing in these windows dates from the early 20th century. A blocked north doorway contains a similar window. The nave and chancel have a plinth, chamfered quoins, a modillioned eaves cornice and parapet with moulded copings. A hipped mansard roof covers the nave.

The three-bay chancel has blind round-headed niches flanking a central round-headed recess with moulded impost bands. This central recess originally held a doorway with an architrave and double keystone beneath a pediment on consoles, now occupied by a mid-20th-century window. A similar recess in the east wall contains an Ionic Venetian window, and a pedimented gable crowns the east end. The tomb chamber is a lean-to structure with a flat-roofed vestry adjoining.

Inside, four-bay Roman Doric colonnades define the aisles. The windows have stucco archivolts and moulded impost strings. Doorways are topped with pediments on consoles. A three-bay pedimented Ionic screen originally fronted the former tomb chamber, though this is now obscured by an early 20th-century organ. A pointed Gothic doorway provides access to the mausoleum of 1740, attributed to Gibbs. The doorway has a moulded stone surround with carved, partly open-traceried doors beneath a stucco open pediment on consoles with drops and a vase at the apex flanked by reclining putti. A winged angel head sits in the tympanum above festoons.

The nave ceiling is corniced and contains two late 19th-century louvred circular gas vents. The east window contains stained glass of 1931 by A.K. Nicholson of London. The church retains altered box pews and an inlaid panelled pulpit. The choir stalls are panelled and date from 1919, with carving and poppy-head ends. The chancel contains a panelled oak altar and dado panelling from 1931 by Hicks and Charlewood of Newcastle. The carved communion rails have lost their balusters.

The chancel contains notable marble wall monuments. On the north wall is a monument to John Turner and Elizabeth Turner, dating from around 1659 and attributed to Joshua Marshall. It comprises a cartouche with a Latin epitaph and skull finial, set in a niche with a moulded surround and carved shields in the spandrels, within an aedicule topped by a sculptured achievement of arms and a bolection-moulded apron. On the south wall is a life-sized figure of John Turner, who died in 1688, robed as a Sergeant-at-Law, set within an enriched aedicule with arms and epitaph.

The floor contains several historic elements. Seventeenth-century floor slabs are present, along with a brass to Robert Coulthirst, who died in 1631, showing a male figure with the arms of the Merchant Taylors' Company and an inscribed border on the sanctuary floor. Fifteenth-century floor slabs in the nave include one that was the matrix of a brass. A carved 14th-century grave cover depicts a recumbent female figure. An Anglo-Saxon coffin also survives.

The font is an octagonal marble baluster on a wide stone step, dating from around 1740 and probably made by Gibbs. The bowl has gadrooning to its underside and a moulded rim. The octagonal tented cover is made of carved wood and dates from the 17th century.