Church of St Michael

NZ3956NW 920-1/19/41

SUNDERLAND CHURCH LANE (west side) Church of St Michael

10/11/78

GV II* Bishopwearmouth parish church. Medieval chancel largely reconstructed; tower c1807; transepts 1849-50 by John Dobson; nave rebuilt with double aisles 1933-35 by W.D Caröe; outer aisles partitioned and floors inserted in 1981 by Ian Curry to form community centre. Coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings; ashlar aisles and porches; Welsh slate roof with stone gable copings. Aisled chancel with north vestry; transepts; double-aisled nave clasping west tower; north, south and full-width west porches.

EXTERIOR: Decorated style transepts and chancel, perpendicular aisles and porches. Geometric tracery in five-light east and four-light transept windows with roundels in gable peaks. Buttressed four-bay aisles have three-light windows, and low porches in east bay with boarded doors recessed in elliptical arches; paired perpendicular clerestory lights. West end has wide, buttressed porch with two doors in elliptical-headed arches, flanked by tall two-light windows under ramped parapet of pent roof; lower north and south extensions have buttresses on canted corners; west ends of aisles above have central projecting canopied niches rising through stepped parapets to pinnacles. Two stages of tower above porch have intersecting tracery below and perpendicular tracery in pointed-arched louvred belfry openings below stepped battlemented parapet.

INTERIOR: ashlar; plaster aisles with ashlar dressings. Three bay nave has high elliptical arcades with polygonal piers; chancel roof wood barrel vault, nave roof arch-braced trusses. Late C13 style piscina and sedilia. Transepts have high quality wood galleries set in east bays of nave arcade. Similar wood screen transferred to west end. High-quality C20 carved wood organ case and pulpit with sounding board. Medieval font bowl, C17 font with fluted bowl on turned pedestal rising from acanthus leaves, and elaborate C19 font.

MEMORIALS: include two medieval grave-covers, one with a stepped base to the incised cross and the other with a foliate cross head, both in west porch; an eroded medieval effigy in the south transept said to be that of Thomas Middleton of Silksworth. Many C18 and C19 memorials, including brass in chancel to William Cockin (d.1889) by Singer and Sons, Frome and London; also in chancel, memorial to John Scott (d.1853) by Lewis and Son, Cheltenham. In south transept, high relief depicting a grieving woman, for Stephen Pemberton (d.1831) signed David Dunbar. Plaque in west porch commemorating the munificence of Sir John Priestman enabling the restorations of 1933-35; and a marble memorial to Thomas Wilson, one of the proprietors of the Glass Manufactory at Ayres Quay, d.1776. Glass includes east window 1950 by D.M Grant.

Listing NGR: NZ3928556953