Rent Office, Former Chapel

The building is a former chapel, now functioning as a rent office, located in Ryhope, Sunderland. It was constructed between 1826 and 1827 as a chapel of ease for the Church of St Michael in Bishopwearmouth. The building later transitioned to an infants' school around 1870 and became a library by 1984.

The exterior features limestone rubble with ashlar dressings and a roof made of graduated thick grey slates, topped with an ashlar bellcote and copings. It is a single high storey with two windows, accompanied by a lower one-storey porch that has one window and a lower rear extension. The porch, situated on the left, has a plain stone lintel and alternate block jambs leading to boarded double doors with an overlight that includes glazing bars. The main block has rusticated quoins and two wide renewed mullion and transom windows with glazing bars in fixed lights, framed by surrounds similar to that of the door. All gables are adorned with stone copings, and the west side features a rusticated ashlar bellcote on a plinth, complete with voussoirs to the bell arch, a cornice, and a blocking course. The left return of the porch has a drip mould over a mullioned and transomed pointed-arched window, with a similar window in the rear extension of the porch.

The interior, which was partly inspected, reveals a wide inner architrave on the door from the porch to the inquiries counter and some dado panelling in the lobby leading to the counter. The chapel ceased operations when the new Church of St Paul was opened.