St John's Church, Gateshead Fell, is in Church Road,

Sheriff Hill Sheriff Hill is a suburb in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead in Tyne and Wear, England. It lies on the B1296 road south of Gateshead, south of Newcastle upon Tyne and north of the historic city of Durham. According to the 2001 UK census ...

Gateshead Gateshead () is a large town in northern England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank, opposite Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle to which it is joined by seven bridges. The town contains the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Sage ...

Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newcastl ...

, England. It is an active

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

in the deanery of Gateshead, the archdeaconry of Sunderland, and the

diocese of Durham The Diocese of Durham is a Church of England diocese, based in Durham, and covering the historic county of Durham (and therefore including the part of Tyne and Wear south of the River Tyne, and excluding southern Teesdale). It was created in AD ...

. The church is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...

as a designated Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. It was a

Commissioners' church A Commissioners' church, also known as a Waterloo church and Million Act church, is an Anglican church in the United Kingdom built with money voted by Parliament as a result of the Church Building Acts of 1818 and 1824. The 1818 Act supplied ...

, having received a grant towards its construction from the Church Building Commission. The church stands at the highest point in Gateshead.

History

In 1809, the

Enclosure Act The Inclosure Acts, which use an archaic spelling of the word now usually spelt "enclosure", cover enclosure of open fields and common land in England and Wales, creating legal property rights to land previously held in common. Between 1604 and 1 ...

decreed that there be a church built on Gateshead Fell and an acre of land was set aside for that purpose.MacKenzie, E & Ross, M (1834): ''An historical, topographical, and descriptive view of the county palatine of Durham'' p. 107 oclc 59482663. A grant of £1,000 () was given towards its construction by the Church Building Commission. Designed by John Ions, the

foundation stone The cornerstone (or foundation stone or setting stone) is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure. Over time ...

was laid by Rev. John Collinson, at a "lofty eminence" on Sour Milk Hill, on 13 May 1824. Building continued into the next year and the church was

consecrated Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different grou ...

on 30 August 1825. The total cost was £2,742 (). In the 1990s alterations were carried out at the rear of the church to create meeting rooms, toilets, and a kitchen.

Architecture

St John's is constructed in

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

stone with a Welsh

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

roof. Its architectural style is

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

. The plan of the church consists of a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

, a short

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

, and a west tower with a spire. The tower also has diagonal

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

es and an

embattled A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...

. The windows along the sides of the church are lancets. The two-

manual Manual may refer to: Instructions * User guide * Owner's manual * Instruction manual (gaming) * Online help Other uses * Manual (music), a keyboard, as for an organ * Manual (band) * Manual transmission * Manual, a bicycle technique similar to ...

organ was made by

Harrison and Harrison Harrison & Harrison Ltd is a British company that makes and restores pipe organs, based in Durham and established in Rochdale in 1861. It is well known for its work on instruments such as King's College, Cambridge, Westminster Abbey, and the R ...

. It replaced an organ made in about 1929 by Blackett and Howden, and was installed in 2000. The organ was formerly in St Aidan's Church, Blackhill,

Consett Consett is a town in County Durham, England, about south-west of Newcastle upon Tyne. It had a population of 27,394 in 2001 and an estimate of 25,812 in 2019. History Consett sits high on the edge of the Pennines. Its' name originates in the ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gateshead Fell, St John's Church Church of England church buildings in Tyne and Wear Grade II listed churches in Tyne and Wear Churches completed in 1825 19th-century Church of England church buildings Gothic Revival church buildings in England Gothic Revival architecture in Tyne and Wear Diocese of Durham Commissioners' church buildings

History

Architecture

See also

References