Church Of St George With Trininty And St James With Hall, Walls And Gates

Church of St George with Trinity and St James with hall, walls and gates

Presbyterian church, now United Reformed church shared with other congregations, located on Belvedere Road in Sunderland. Built 1888–90 to designs by John Bennie Wilson of Glasgow. The construction was substantially financed by RA Bartram, a shipowner, who laid the foundation stone on 7 February 1889. The church was erected to replace the Villiers Street Chapel, which had become too small for the growing congregation.

The church is constructed of rock-faced red Dumfries sandstone with ashlar dressings. The roof is covered with small Lakeland slates, finished with red terracotta ridge tiles and stone gable finials. The building is oriented with its geographical south side towards the ritual east.

The church comprises an aisled five-bay nave, transepts, and a south-west tower, designed in the Free Church Gothic style of the 13th century. The exterior displays plate tracery, lancets, and cusped roundels throughout. The aisles and west elevation feature paired lancets with plain reveals and alternate-block jambs. Gallery windows have long sloping sills with a sill string running across. The north and south transepts are gabled and contain large circular roundels positioned between two lancets set within double-recessed pointed arched panels. The aisle gallery bays are defined by shallow pilasters rising from the sill string. The west gallery displays tall paired two-light windows with a central gabled buttress and a larger buttress to the left that defines the tower.

The tower is a distinctive feature, with a west-facing gabled door projection containing steps leading up to double doors. These doors are topped by a carved tympanum within a many-moulded surround with chamfers that die into the jambs. Short gabled buttresses flank the door projection, with smaller buttresses on the left return. Behind the door gable is a short second stage featuring a simple blind arcade. The tall third stage contains long slits positioned near the top. The very tall fourth stage is dominated by paired full-height cusped belfry openings with lower lancets, cusped transoms, and tracery between gabled buttresses. Spirelets top the pinnacles, rising to a squat pyramidal roof with swept finial.

The adjoining church hall, constructed in similar materials and style, is positioned to the ritual north-east of the church. It displays an L-shaped plan with an octagonal porch in the angle. The hall is two storeys with a 4-by-4 arrangement of windows. The date 1888 is inscribed on the east gable. The roof is steeply pitched with high pyramidal ridge ventilators and a tall octagonal roof crowning the porch.

Walls attached to the complex enclose the space between the hall and church along Stockton Road and continue along Belvedere Road. These rock-faced walls, featuring renewed railings, incorporate tooled ashlar square gate piers with inner-facing gables on low conical coping. The folding four-leaf wrought-iron gates feature scrolls and dogbars.

The interior of the church retains much original detail and high quality finish. A cast-iron pier system supports galleries on three sides. The roof is boarded. An organ occupies the east end. The centrepiece of the interior is a high quality carved stone pulpit of 1907, designed as a memorial in consultation with the architect, positioned at the centre in front of the organ. Elders' chairs are positioned in front of the pulpit. The church retains much of its original high quality pewing. Stained glass of high quality is fitted to most windows throughout the building.