Wesley Methodist Church, Newgate Street © DCC 25/11/09


Wesley Methodist Church, Newgate Street © DCC 25/11/09


Wesley Methodist Church, Newgate Street © DCC 25/11/09

Wesleyan Methodist Church with railings attached. 1908-1914. By Gordon & Gunter. Builder Thomas Hilton. Foundation stone laid 1912. MATERIALS: rock-faced stone with ashlar dressings. Stone from Witton-le-Wear. Roof Lakeland slate with red ridge tiles. PLAN: modified C14 style. Chancel with south-east boiler house, north vestry and south organ chamber; aisled nave with short transepts; west vestibule with north-west tower porch and north-east meeting room. Oriented north-south. EXTERIOR: high east window has plate tracery to 5 lights, the central 3 transomed, with cusped tracery. 2 groups of 3 stepped lancets in clerestory, and 3 paired lights with simple pointed tracery in long straight vestry window. Boiler house breaks forward at left and has paired lights flanking door under continuous lintel. Inscription from street of cottages formerly on this site, BROUGHAM PLACE, set in boiler house wall. Vestry to right has low pointed arch to chamfered surround of door, and plain window to right. Transepts of same depth as aisles, with high transept lights similar to east window. 4 lower aisle windows, recessed in plain surrounds, have 5 cusped lights in pointed arches with long voussoirs extending to moulded parapets, bays defined by diagonal pilasters with crocketed pinnacles. Transept and vestry have similar parapets, with raised panel over vestry and ball finial on transept gable. Clerestory has 4 groups of 3 stepped lancets. Tower has 2 stages, the second very tall. Steps up to double boarded doors on north with elaborate hinges and cusped overlight in pointed triple chamfered surround with flower-stopped dripmould. Polygonal angle buttresses to second stage flank corbel table with Tudor flowers. Long diagonal shafts to paired louvred belfry opneings with cusped tracery and transoms. Clock faces above. String to parapet with high pierced battlements with blind tracery panels and crocketed angle spirelets. West elevation has paired arched entrances with boarded doors deeply recessed under triple chamfered heads. Meeting room entrance breaks forward at right with half-glazed boarded door in double chamfered surround, 1:3:1 stone mullioned lights above, and rainwater heads with Tudor flower decoration. INTERIOR has ashlar arcades and arch braced hammer beam nave roof, scissor trusses to chancel roof. Dripstring over moulded pointed arches on chamfered piers with tongue-stopped bases. High triple chamfered chancel arch has ballflower stops to dripmould. Similar stops to wide Tudor arch to organ. FITTINGS: wooden fittings include, altar with trefoil piering and Tudor-arched reredos, pulpit and lectern carved oak. Oak font a WWII memorial. Pews boarded with shaped ends.

MEMORIALS: east window high quality stained glass is WWI memorial with associated marble plaque; eight light stained galss window is also dedicated to serving church members during the First World War (1-2). Other windows have central floral motifs. Vestibule has foundation stone in west wall.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: walls, piers, gates and railings enclose yard between boiler house, vestry, Newgate Street and lane on south. Paving of yard includes inscription stone from previous Methodist chapel: WESLEYAN CHAPEL ERECTED 1842 in well-cut Roman capitals. Rockfaced stone walls have chamfered coping. Wrought-iron railings and gate have panels of Art Nouveau style with bud and leaf patterns. Some railings damaged at time of survey (1991).