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BISHOP AUCKLAND

NZ22NW COCKTON HILL ROAD 634-1/5/21 (East side) Central Methodist Church

GV II

Wesleyan Methodist Church with hall attached. 1903. By TE Davidson of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. MATERIALS: rock-faced sandstone with ashlar plinth and dressings; slate roof with stone gable copings, red terracotta ridge and stone spire. PLAN: choir with north organ chamber, chapel with transepts, aisles, west vestibule and north-west tower. Hall at south. Linking passage with north vestry and south schoolroom. Early English style. EXTERIOR: all windows ashlar surrounds and mullions. Choir has tall 3-light window with plate tracery in pointed arch under low gable. Gabled transepts have paired lancets. Similar lights in clerestory, 2-light square headed windows in pent aisles. West elevation has 3 central lancets below central tall pointed chamfered arch with plate tracery to 4 lancet lights below 6-foil and roundels; buttresses define flanking entrance bays and rise through gable peak, inner ones gabled and outer with spirelets. Entrances have chamfered pointed arched surrounds with dripmoulds to boarded double doors with elaborate hinges. Lancets over doors. Tower of 2 high stages has angle buttresses, paired lancets to first stage and tall 2-light window to second. Gutter cornice with angle spouts, ashlar parapet with coped angle blocks. Tall octagonal spire has 4 lucarnes on parapet. South-west vestibule similar to first tower stage has parapet. Link to hall has lancets flanking gabled porch. Hall has flowing tracery in paired 2-light west windows flanked by buttresses with spirelets rising through gable; lancets in outer bays. Porch on left return with schoolroom in aisle behind, right return aisle store and kitchen, rear schoolroom. INTERIOR of church painted plaster with ashlar arcades and dressings and wood gallery. Arcades have wide raised segmental arches on round piers with moulded capitals; choir arch has inner recessed chamfered arch on corbelled shafts. Boarded ceiling with 3 pierced vent roundels to queen post roof, moulded and arch-braced, on moulded stone corbels which rest alternately on clerestory sill string and on arcades. 6 panel doors throughout, at west with glass in top panels, vestry door in fluted architrave with fleur-de-lys finial. FITTINGS include curved arcaded communion rail on step; further step to altar. Panelled wood west gallery. Panelled pews with moulded ends and brass umbrella racks. Half glazed vestibule screens below gallery and to doors within vestibule, all with original glass. Vestibule terrazzo floor with flower motif. Windows mostly have rectangular quarries with panels of floral motifs; north aisle central window commemorates W H Hanflett 1857-1928, signed Abbott & Co., Lancaster. Same signature on other plainer windows and in south aisle window to members of the Curry family d.1905 and 1924, showing Christ with Children. INTERIOR of vestry shows marbled painted chimney piece with incised decoration on pilasters and lintel, and stucco ceiling cornice. Hall and other rooms have boarded dado with rail, much original detail including numbered coat hooks and cast iron radiators `Decorated Patent no. 280475'.

Listing NGR: NZ2096428977