CHURCH OF ST HILDA

CHURCH OF ST HILDA, PARKGATE

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

1887-8 by J L Pearson. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1322955
Date first listed:: 28-Apr-1952
List Entry Name:: CHURCH OF ST HILDA
Statutory Address:: CHURCH OF ST HILDA, PARKGATE

User submitted image — Uploaded by Alan Marsh This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Images of England Project

To view this image please use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Edge.

Archive image, may not represent current condition of site.

Date:: 1999-10-03
Reference:: IOE01/00757/29
Rights:: © Mr Alan Bradley. Source: Historic England Archive

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1322955
Date first listed:: 28-Apr-1952
List Entry Name:: CHURCH OF ST HILDA
Statutory Address 1:: CHURCH OF ST HILDA, PARKGATE

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: CHURCH OF ST HILDA, PARKGATE

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Darlington (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: NZ 29259 14495

Details

DARLINGTON

907/9/118 PARKGATE 907/10/118 (Northeast side) 28-APR-52 CHURCH OF ST HILDA

II 1887-8 by J L Pearson.

MATERIALS: Red brick laid in English bond with sandstone dressings.

PLAN: Nave, chancel, N and S aisles, N porch, N chapel, S organ chamber/transept and vestries

EXTERIOR: Built in the Early English style. The W end, to the road, has three tall lancet windows with double-chamfered frames divided by two tall, slender buttresses with offsets. The N and S sides have low lean-to buttressed aisles with paired lancet windows. The nave walls above have large triple graded lancet clerestory windows with rounded hoodmoulds. The S side has a moulded doorway with a two-leaf door with decorative strap hinges. There is a N porch with a moulded outer doorway with engaged shafts with bell capitals. The tall, narrow S transept has a cusped circular window in the gable. The vestry block has a plate tracery E window and a transomed S two-light window and a stack against the S transept. The N chapel is distinctive, its N wall being canted in to the E following the shape of the site, and has a striking, large five-light plate tracery E window.

INTERIOR: The walls of the well-proportioned interior (presently empty) are of bare red brick with bare sandstone dressings. The arcades have circular and octagonal piers, moulded capitals and double-chamfered arches. At the entrance to the chancel the arch is tall and has semi-circular responds. On the N of the chancel there is a two-bay arcade to the NE chapel which has been screened off. Over the nave is a tie-beam and crown-post roof

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: Nearly all the fittings and stained glass have been removed. The font has an octagonal stone bowl on a stem with engaged shafts and an outer order of detached shafts. Stained glass survives in the upper part of the E window.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: E of the church and linked to it is the church hall, modest in scale with stone mullioned square-headed windows and an entrance on the S.

HISTORY: The church was built in 1887-8 to the designs of John Loughborough Pearson (1817-97), one of the greatest of all C19 church architects. He began practice in 1843 having trained in the offices of Ignatius Bonomi in Durham and Anthony Salvin and then Philip Hardwick in London. He was awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 1880 and is remembered for a series of exceptionally fine churches. These often display strong French influence: Pearson's most famous building is Truro Cathedral, begun in 1880 and the first English cathedral built on a new site since Salisbury in the early C13. St Hilda's is in the mould of late 19th-century brick churches which were built with modest financial means but still strived and usually succeeded in creating quite a grand effect thanks to their scale and height, in this case `A boldly massed composition' (Pevsner and Williamson).

The church was declared redundant in 1986 and most of the fittings had been removed by 1987. In 1993 conversion was granted to a community centre, offices and residences. It was vandalised and fire-damaged before the Light and Life Gypsy Church acquired the building in 1996 which still owns it (as at June 2009)

SOURCES: Nikolaus Pevsner and Elizabeth Williamson, The Buildings of England: County Durham, 1983, p 147. Darlington Borough Planning Department, file 96/600.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The church of St Hilda, Darlington, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is of special interest as a late 19th-century brick church in the Early English built with limited financial means but nonetheless achieving a good architectural presence. * It is a late work by J L Pearson, one of the greatest of all Victorian church architects. * Despite the loss of its fixtures, the interior retains its spatial quality.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 110687
Legacy System:: LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.