Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

CHAPEL OF THE VENERABLE BEDE

CHAPEL OF THE VENERABLE BEDE, LEAZES ROAD

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

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1392058
Date first listed:: 24-Jun-2007
List Entry Name:: CHAPEL OF THE VENERABLE BEDE
Statutory Address:: CHAPEL OF THE VENERABLE BEDE, LEAZES ROAD

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

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

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

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:: 1392058
Date first listed:: 24-Jun-2007
List Entry Name:: CHAPEL OF THE VENERABLE BEDE
Statutory Address 1:: CHAPEL OF THE VENERABLE BEDE, LEAZES ROAD

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:: CHAPEL OF THE VENERABLE BEDE, LEAZES ROAD

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

District:: County Durham (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: City of Durham
National Grid Reference:: NZ 28042 42624

Details

1914/0/10031 LEAZES ROAD 25-JUN-07 College of St Hild and St Bede Chapel of the Venerable Bede

II Anglican chapel. 1939, by Seeley & Paget. Reinforced concrete frame filled with solid brickwork and rendered; welsh slate roof, metal windows and cork flooring. PLAN: rectangular chapel with narthex and an apsidal vestry attached to the south.

EXTERIOR: art deco with gothic, baroque and classical detail.

East end is plain with lancet openings through flanking buttresses.

West end narthex in the form of a tall rectangular tower of 3 bays; central bay inset with small rectangular openings piercing parapet; single lancet window in organ gallery and main entrance below. Classical entrance with Romanesque arch rising from imposts, flanked by a pair of columns and entablature in doric style. Main door is of 15-panes with semi-circular fanlight above. Left bay plain with rectangular projecting stair turret on ground floor providing access to organ gallery. Right bay has a belfry in the form of a concave niche containing a figure of St Bede supported on a fluted corbel, with bell and canopy above surmounted by a cross. A flat roofed single story apsidal vestry projects to the south with a 16-pane tripartite window in its curving end. North and south walls of alternate narrow and broad bays demarcated by paired buttresses with narrow bays recessed. The west wall of each broad bay is pierced by a lancet window. At a higher level, the bays are set back from the outer face. At ground floor level, there are a series of 16-pane tripartite casement windows.

INTERIOR: simple whitewashed plaster walls with a ceiling of alternate barrel vaulted bays in sprayed asbestos and cross-vaulted bays in fibrous plaster. At a level of c. 3m above the floor, the walls are set back from the outer face in alternate bays and at a higher level still the walls are set further back in order to reduce the roof span. The central aisle is flanked by three rows of raised seating formed of alternate teak and walnut boards, polished and decorated with various coats of arms. Two rows at the western ends are set at right angles to the aisle. The altar, also of alternate teak and walnut boards, retains its original covering. Timber cornices, finished with silver leaf, suspend the original hangings to the rear. The Bishop's chair to the left of the altar and the sedilium to the right, are also constructed of alternate walnut and teak boards, the latter with rear hangings suspended on plaster cornices. The font and lectern are part of the original chapel fittings. A Harrison and Harrison organ of 1891 with a casing by Seeley & Paget occupies the organ gallery at the west end of the chapel. The cork flooring and woodwork detail is carried through to the vestibule and vestry with original doors and fittings.

HISTORY: The Chapel of the Venerable Bede, designed by architects John Seeley and Paul Paget was completed in 1939. It was constructed in the then grounds of the College of the Venerable Bede to celebrate its centenary as a Church of England teacher training school. The college of Hild and Bede was formed in 1979 when the Church of England sold the college to the University of Durham. The chapel occupies a prominent location on a sloping site above the River Wear.

Seeley & Paget are historically important as they are considered to be at the forefront of C20 architecture. The practice worked between 1930 and 1960 and during this time produced a number of highly original ecclesiastical buildings in a variety of styles worldwide. However, it is their ability to work among a range of genres and to incorporate historic styles into modern buildings, which is one of the key factors contributing to their historic importance. They are best remembered for their art deco extension to Eltham Palace but also for a number of notable churches including The Ascension of 1939 at Hanger Lane.

SOURCES: 'The New Chapel at the College of the Venerable Bede, Durham' The Architect & Building News, (1st March 1940) 222-224. Nikolaus Pevsner, Buildings of England. County Durham 2nd ed (1983), 236

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: This Anglican chapel was designed by Seeley & Paget in 1939 in the then grounds of the College of the Venerable Bede. It is of special architectural and historic interest for its outstanding design and excellent detailing by one of the leading national architectural practices of the time. In particular, the skilful amalgam of various styles in an essentially art deco building, a trademark of the Seeley & Paget practice is noteworthy. Their use of modern materials and techniques is demonstrated in the plain yet dramatic interior, which is also intact with good quality fixtures and fittings including a cross by Stephen Dykes-Bowyer. The quality of design and execution combined with a very low level of alteration mean that this chapel fully meets the criteria for listing a C20 place of worship in a national context.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 502403
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: County Durham, (1983), 236
'The Architect and Building News' in The New Chapel at the College of the Venerable Bede, Durham, (1940), 222-224

Legal

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