Church Of St John And Attached Hall

Church of St John and attached hall

A Methodist church with adjoining hall, built between 1887 and 1888 with the hall added around 1907. The church was designed by Robert Curwen, with main contractors J H Thorp and Sons of Leeds. It stands on Ashbrooke Road in Sunderland.

The building is constructed of rock-faced sandstone with ashlar sandstone dressings. Prudhoe stone was used for the tower and Denwick stone for the interior. The roof is covered in graduated Lakeland slate.

The church is designed in the Early English style. The plan comprises a five-bay nave with aisles, a chancel, paired transepts, a south-west tower (which is oriented ritually to the north-east), and a north-west porch (ritually south-east). Meeting rooms occupy an undercroft beneath the chancel, taking advantage of the fall of ground, with a corridor link connecting the ritually north-east to the hall.

The east elevation (geographically west) features paired lights to the undercroft, a five-light chancel window under a gable, mullioned lights to the undercroft, and trefoil-headed lights to a corridor with a central round stair tower topped by a conical roof. The hall projects to the right of this elevation.

The nave transepts have three-light windows set above three lancets within paired gables. The aisles are lit by lancets in bays defined by buttresses, with a dripstring above each window. The north aisle has a gabled porch containing five small stepped lancets over boarded doors, their arch elaborately moulded with nookshafts and ball-flower stops to the hoodmould. The nave clerestory features paired two-light windows with geometric tracery and dripmoulds, set between shallow coped buttresses.

The west elevation (ritually facing the road) has a gabled canopy sheltering a large arch containing paired trefoil-headed door surrounds, similar in design to the north door, with a row of lancets behind the gable above. A large five-light window rises above this, with a pinnacle to the left of the gable and a row of lancets in a set-back north porch to the right.

The four-stage tower occupies the right side of this elevation. The first stage has a door; the second has three lancet slits; the third contains arcaded lancets; the fourth has tall paired belfry lancets. Above rises an octagonal stone spire with corner pinnacles and spirelets flanking large lucarnes. The spire is decorated with carved bands and has slender high lucarnes. Throughout, the building features a plinth, angle buttresses, sill strings, ashlar jambs, and stone gable coping with finials.

The corridor link to the hall has a central gabled entrance and three-light mullioned windows. The hall, projecting to the left, has a pent porch with diagonal buttresses to its front gable.

The interior is plastered with extensive areas of ashlar. The church features a hammer beam roof on corbelled wall shafts with iron ties, boarded between arched wind braces. A high chancel arch springs from ringed corbelled shafts with stiff leaf capitals. The arcade consists of moulded arches on round piers with stiff leaf capitals, with transverse arches to the aisles. West and transept galleries are provided.

The chancel has a blind arch to the north and an organ arch to the south with screen. The furnishings are of high quality throughout, including a pulpit and reading desk on stone pedestals. The pulpit has a remarkable brass handrail in the form of a serpent with its head pointing downwards. The Communion rail is brass and cast-iron, decorated with sunflower and leaf patterns. The choir pews have carved ends, and the nave pews feature blind tracery.

The stained glass includes a small brightly-coloured lancet of 1888 in the north transept, commemorating the son, aged nine, of the first minister. The east window commemorates T C Squance (died 1897) and depicts scenes from the life of Christ. The west window, of high quality, commemorates J W Taylor and shows the Crucifixion across all lights.