Description

SUNDERLAND

NZ3957SE BRIDGE STREET 920-1/18/20 (West side) 08/05/50 Church of St Mary and attached railings (Formerly Listed as: BRIDGE STREET (West side) Roman Catholic Church of St Mary)

GV II

Roman Catholic parish church. 1830-35. By I Bonomi. 1850 chapels, c1980 alteration to ritual S when attached presbytery demolished. Sandstone ashlar W front, remainder limestone rubble with ashlar dressings and some C20 ashlar; Welsh slate roof; cast-iron railings. W is ritual E. Sanctuary; N and S chapels; 3-bay nave. C13 style. Gabled W front to street has stepped buttresses with tall pinnacles flanking tall 3-light window with cinquefoil in plate tracery; stepped triple arcade above, outer arches blind and central louvred, under crocketed gable. Flanking lancets below smaller lights, under plain sloped coping. 2-stage porches at each end, with pinnacled stepped and angled buttresses, have moulded door arches with nook shafts; bands above have blind quatrefoil tracery; top stage 2-light windows with quatrefoil tracery under Lombard frieze and top blind arcaded parapet. Gable has cross finial. S elevation has lancets. E front to Back Bridge Street has central trefoil below small lancet; lancets in outer bays; paired lancets in N and triple in S chapels. INTERIOR has W gallery on moulded cast-iron columns; inserted partition set back below. Chapels have paired double-chamfered arches on round column and attached half-columns, the N with shafts. High pointed-arched sanctuary, blind trefoil above and trefoil within, and flanking windows have nook shafts with clasping rings; hoodstring over pointed blind arches and windows. 4 confessional doors in N wall have shouldered arches with signs of the Passion carved in spandrels of chamfered surrounds under hoodstring. Panelled coved ceiling on brattished cornice and heraldic corbels. N chapel has Gothic-style reredos with high relief carved Annunciation, S chapel has E arcade. Reordered with altar brought forward; carved, painted Gothic reredos in situ. Glass in E windows signed and dated TC Dickinson, London, 1946; in N chapel vivid N window signed HM Barnett, Newcastle, commemorating Gilmore died 1867. Cast-iron railings attached to front and right return of ritual S porch: spears with trefoils on principles. The earliest Gothic revival church surviving in Sunderland. (Corfe T and Milburn G: Buildings and Beliefs: Sunderland: 1984-: 10).

Listing NGR: NZ3967857227

External Links

• St Mary's Church, Sunderland at Wikipedia
• St Mary's Church, Sunderland official website
• Wikidata Q22087138

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)