Church Of St Paul

WHITLEY BAY PARK VIEW (south side) NZ 37 SE 5/181 Church of St. Paul. 19.5.50 G.V. II Parish church. 1864 by Salvin; paid for by Duke of Northumberland. Snecked sandstone with ashlar plinth, quoins and dressings; Lakeland slate roof with flat stone gable copings and stone spire. Aisled nave with north and south porches; south tower; chancel with north vestry. Early English style. Doors in second-bay gabled-porches have double-chamfered surrounds. Lancet windows, some paired or grouped under roundels, those at east end stepped. 3-stage tower has door recessed under blind trefoil and painted drip mould; clock and paired shafted belfry openings. Mask corbel table and octagonal spire; half-octagonal east stair turret. Enclosed passage on north to vestry. Cross finials. Interior: plaster with ashlar dressings. Double-chamfered arches to 5-bay north and 4-bay south nave arcades with moulded octagonal capitals on round piers. Similar chancel arch on shafted corbels and tower arches in fifth bay to nave choir and to south aisle. Roof of alternating tie beams and corbelled arch-braced collars; stencil decoration to plainer chancel roof. Octagonal font with dog-tooth ornament. Glass in west window commemorates son William, dated 1883, of William Bourtland Wilkinson; in north aisle by Wailes and Strang in first bay, in third by Camm and Co., Smethwick, Birmingham dated 1901. Historical note: W.B. Wilkinson of Newcastle patented a successful reinforced concrete in 1854. Sources: J.M. Brown 'W. B. Wilkinson and his place in the history of reinforced concrete'. Transactions of the Newcomen Society vol. XXXIX, 1966-67. W.F. Cassie 'Early Reinforced Concrete in Newcastle upon Tyne', Structural Engineer, April 1955, pp 134-7.

Listing NGR: NZ3538072046