Description

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

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26504085

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

• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)