Description

SUNDERLAND

NZ3955 ASHBROOKE CRESCENT 920-1/16/7 (West side) 08/05/50 Church of St John and attached hall (Formerly Listed as: ASHBROOKE CRESCENT (West side) St John's Methodist Church and Hall adjoining St John's Methodist Church)

GV II

Formerly known as: St John's Methodist Church ASHBROOKE ROAD. Wesleyan Methodist, now Methodist, church with hall attached. 1887-8 and hall c1907 by Robert Curwen; main contractors JH Thorp and sons, Leeds. Rock-faced sandstone with ashlar sandstone dressings and interior, including Prudhoe stone for tower and Denwick for interior. Roof of graduated Lakeland slate. EXTERIOR: geographical W is ritual E. Chancel, 5-bay nave with aisles and paired transepts, SW tower (actual NE) and NW porch (SE). Meeting rooms in undercroft to chancel using fall of ground; corridor link from ritual NE to hall. Early English style. Ritual E elevation has paired lights to undercroft, 5-light chancel window under gable; at right, mullioned lights to undercroft and trefoil-headed lights to corridor with central round stair tower with conical roof. Hall to right of this. Nave transepts have 3-light windows over 3 lancets in paired gables. Aisles have dripstring over lancets in bays defined by buttresses. N aisle has gabled porch with 5 small stepped lancets over boarded doors with elaborate hinges in many-moulded arch with nookshafts; ball-flower stops to hoodmould. Nave clerestory has paired 2-light windows with geometric tracery and dripmoulds; shallow coped buttresses. Elevation to Ashbrooke Road, ritual W, has gabled canopy over large arch to paired trefoil-headed surrounds of doors, similar to N door; row of lancets behind gable. Large 5-light window above; pinnacle at left of gable and row of lancets in set-back N porch. At right, a 4-stage tower with door in first, 3 lancet slits in second, arcaded lancets in third, and tall paired belfry lancets above. Octagonal stone spire has corner pinnacles with spirelets flanking large lucarnes, bands of carved decoration, and slender high lucarnes. Plinth, angle buttresses, sill strings and ashlar jambs throughout, and stone gable coping with finials. Corridor link to hall has central gabled entrance and 3-light mullioned windows. Hall projecting at left has pent porch, with diagonal buttresses, to front gable. INTERIOR: church interior plaster with much ashlar; hammer beam roof on corbelled wall shafts with iron ties, and boarded between arched wind braces. High chancel arch on ringed corbelled shafts with stiff leaf capitals; arcade of moulded arches on round piers with stiff leaf capitals; transverse arches to aisles. W and transept galleries. Chancel has blind arch to N, organ arch to S with screen. High quality furnishings throughout include pulpit and reading desk on stone pedestals, with remarkable pulpit handrail of brass in form of serpent, head pointing down; brass and cast-iron Communion rail with sunflower and leaf patterns; choir pews with carved ends and nave pews with blind tracery. Glass includes small brightly-coloured lancet of 1888 in N transept to son, aged 9, of first minister; E window commemorating TC Squance (d.1897), with scenes from life of Christ; W window of high quality to JW Taylor, with scene of Crucifixion across all lights. (Corfe T and Milburn G: Buildings and Beliefs: Sunderland: 1984-: 18; Milburn G et al: St John's Ashbrooke 1888-1988: Sunderland: 1988-: 16-35).

Listing NGR: NZ3955155874

External Links

• Wikidata Q26502226

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