Memorial Church, Social Centre And Ministers House

The Memorial Church, social centre, and minister's house, located on Albion Road in North Shields, is a non-conformist church built between 1889 and 1891 by F.R.N. Haswell for the Wesleyan Methodists, funded by J. Robinson in memory of his daughter Elizabeth. The building was restored in 1981 for the North Tyneside Memorial Church. It features snecked sandstone with ashlar dressings and has Lakeland slate roofs with stone gable copings and ornamental ridge tiles.

The church is aligned north-south on a corner site, with a tower at the ritual north-west. It includes an aisled nave, a south-west apsidal-ended chapel, transepts, and a chancel with porches. The entrance has paired recessed 2-centred arches under a 4-light west window with pink granite nook shafts. The three-stage tower has gargoyles on the pierced parapet, and an octagonal stair turret rises to a higher level. The two-storey aisles have three buttressed bays, while the two-storey transepts feature paired gables. The chancel and each side of the east apse have two tall lancets, and there are angle buttresses topped with spirelets. The roofs are steeply pitched.

Inside, the church has plaster walls with ashlar dressings above a boarded dado, cast iron columns, and a hammer-beam roof. The gallery arcades on three sides have stiff-leaf capitals, while the tapered columns above feature ball-flower capitals. The chancel arch is high and chamfered. A wide central pulpit is flanked by vestry doors leading down steps to the organ loft, and most original fittings are still present.

The Sunday school has been converted into a social centre, connected to the church by a one-storey link that leads to a hall on the right, which has a gable facing the street. This link features a double boarded door under a 2-centred arch, with a buttress between pairs of triple lancets beneath a cinquefoil window in the gable. The minister's house, built in similar materials and style, is located at the rear right return and is included for its group value.