Church of St Bartholomew and St Boisil

Details

622/9/241 CHURCH ROAD 01-AUG-52 TWEEDMOUTH Church of St Bartholomew and St Boisil (Formerly listed as: CHURCH ROAD TWEEDMOUTH CHURCH OF ST BARTHOLOMEW)

GV II Church, 1783, 1841, 1866-8 and 1908.

MATERIALS: large blocks of ashlar with slate roofs except to the porch which has a tiled roof.

PLAN: nave and chancel with separate roof, west tower, north transept and vestry, and south porch.

EXTERIOR: The chancel (1866) has buttresses flush with the east wall and a large east window with Gothic style curvilinear tracery and hoodmould with carved terminals. There are two pointed arch windows with tracery and hoodmoulds to each side. On the north side a gabled vestry (1868) extends from the west end of the chancel and has a small square headed window to the east, and a pointed arch window and square headed door, set in an arched recess pierced with a roundel, in the gable end. The door is approached up a short flight of steps. The nave has four pointed arch windows of similar style to the chancel on the south side, and one window to either side of the north transept, that to the west is blocked while that to the east is similar to those on the south side. The transept has a triple lancet window to the north with hoodmoulds and a small lancet in the gable. To either side is a lancet window with Y-tracery and broad hoodmoulds, possibly reused from an earlier church. The blocked window is of a similar type. On the north side of the west end of the nave is a quatrefoil window at a low level. The nave has raised gables. The tower is centrally placed at the west end and is of two stages with hollow-chamfered string courses and battlements, topped by a slated spire. The two-light traceried window on the west side replaces an earlier entrance, now blocked. On each side near the top is a quatrefoil window. The porch (1907) is attached to the south side of the tower and has diagonal buttresses and a moulded pointed arch doorway with double plank doors with decorative iron brackets. Above the door is a recessed niche.

INTERIOR: The chancel has a scissor-braced roof with ashlar pieces and is floored with encaustic tiles. The timber reredos (1924) has blind tracery and there is a timber communion rail and plain timber choir stalls. The chancel arch is moulded on stone shafts. The nave has a canted roof, boarded and divided into panels by moulded ribs with flat carved bosses at the intersections. The pews have ends with canted corners and carved crosses in roundels. At the west end is a gallery supported on square section boxed posts, accessed by a boxed stair to the south. The front has fielded panels and a dentil cornice, with a central section with moulded balusters. The pews in the gallery are plain boxed. The north transept has a similar roof to the nave but plainer, and contains the organ (reused from St Andrew's Church, Berwick). A doorway at the rear of the nave leads to the tower and porch. The pulpit is polygonal in timber with blind tracery and a timber balustrade to the stairs. The font (C19) is in stone with an octagonal carved bowl and decorated base and stem. In the south wall is a window by Kempe dated to 1886, and the quatrefoil in the west end is probably by Wailes.

HISTORY: The current building replaces earlier churches on the site dating back to at least the C12 (first reference 1145). The earliest parts of the building date to 1783 when earlier ruins were removed and the tower and nave built, possibly using some earlier fabric. The gallery dates to this period. The north transept was added in 1841, originally containing a gallery for the 'poors' and later the choir. The chancel and vestry were built in 1866-8 to designs by F R Wilson, and the south porch added in 1907-8 at which time the nave and transept were re-roofed.

SUBSIDIARY: The graveyard contains a number of interesting monuments, the earliest decipherable from 1696. These include a memorial to John Mackay Wilson (qv) and one to William Stephenson which has the inscription "Sacred to the memory of William Stephenson engine driver who lost his life on the 2nd day of March 1853 on the Newcastle & Tynemouth Railway by his engine No 184 running off the line of rails over the embankment at the west end of the Wellington Viaduct. Aged 32 years he has left a widow & 2 children to lament his death. He opened the Newcastle & Berwick Railway out in July 1847 by taking the first train of passengers from Tweedmouth to Newcastle. He was greatly respected by all his fellow workman and always obliging to his master".

SOURCES: Pevsner, Northumberland, (1973 edn.), 185 Robertson, R M, Tweedmouth Parish Church, (1998)

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION DECISION The Church of St Bartholomew and St Boisil at Tweedmouth is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * The tower and the main fabric of the nave date to 1783, a period before the great expansion of church building in the C19, and therefore have rarity value * The west gallery is pre-1800 with its original fittings and as such a relatively rare survival * The roofs of both the chancel and the nave are of interest, being well executed with finely detailed decoration in the nave * There is stained glass by Kempe and probably Wailes * The church stands in a churchyard containing a number of interesting memorials.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

237305

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Northumberland, (1957), 185
Robertson, R M, Tweedmouth Parish Church, (1998)

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