St Wilfrid's Church, Haltwhistle

Introduction

St Wilfrid's Church in Haltwhistle, in the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, is a former Presbyterian Church and attached school room built in 1898 to designs by W L Newcombe, now a Catholic Church in Gothic style.

History

Around 1990, concerns about overcrowding at the then Catholic church in the town led to an agreement with the United Reformed Church (URC) to share their church. The foundation stone was laid by Alderman Hudspith on 28 July 1898. The architect was William Lister Newcombe FRIBA of Newcastle, and the builder was Isaac Watson. The church was opened on 28 June 1899 by the Revd J Christie of Carlisle, and had cost £2,000, including the contemporary schoolroom behind.

In 1973 the steeple finials were removed amid concerns that they were unstable. The first Catholic Mass was said in the chapel on 3 February 1991. In July 2010 the building was purchased from the URC for sole use by the Catholic congregation.

Architecture and furnishings

The church is built of rock-faced local stone with ashlar dressings and blue slate roof coverings. The church comprises an aisled nave, with a tower to its SW corner which has the main entrance in its base. The interior retains its Nonconformist character and comprises a large aisled nave with painted plaster walls, a boarded dado and a wood block floor. The original timber pulpit throne remains with its canted front and stairs to either side with open gothic work panels and ornate newel posts.

Alterations to allow for Catholic worship include the installation of a plain forward altar and lectern, plaster statues and simple Stations of the Cross. The church is oriented N to S but the following directions are liturgical. The church occupies a corner site with its W end fronting the main street. The church has a three-stage tower and tall continuous clerestory.

The church has a steeply pitched roof with decorative ridge tiles and finial. The interior retains a largely original plan and a suite of fixtures and fittings including an unusual timber arcade incorporating a false tribune. Iron tie rods span the nave from the moulded corbels of the wall posts. The N aisle has a single pointed-arch window with an ashlar surround at its W end.

The S nave clerestory is a continuous band of twelve timber trefoil-headed leaded windows in groups of four; those to the E side retain original leaded glass and those to the W side have replacement glass with mock lead strip. The S aisle has three square-headed, timber cross windows with leaded glass and trefoil heads with a continuous ashlar sill band. The W end of the nave has a central, stepped five-light tracery window set within an arch with solid spandrels as though it were plate tracery. The E window is a rose window with quatrefoil tracery and a hood mould with bar stops.

A short, slated spire emerges from the gabled upper stage of the tower. A stone band between the first and second stages of the tower extends across the W end of the church forming a continuous hood mould. The original vestry and service stair remain attached to the N; the original door to the vestry has been removed and replaced with a pair of modern openings and the vestry space has been divided and converted to a toilet and scullery. Original features of the school include the timber entrance porch with glazed, trefoil-headed upper parts fitted with leaded glass, a boarded dado and the timber roof structure.