St Columba, North Shields
St Columba, North Shields
St Columba’s United Reformed Church is a Grade II building on Northumberland Square, North Shields, known as the Church in the Square.
- Location
- North Shields, Tyne & Wear
- Country
- England
- County
- Tyne & Wear
- City / town
- North Shields
- Address
- Northumberland Square, North Shields, Tyne & Wear, NE30 1PW
- Postcode
- NE30 1PW
- Built
- 1856–57; wings late C19; hall rebuilt c.1925
- Architect
- John Dobson
- Denomination
- United Reformed Church
- Dedication
- Columba
- Grade
- II
- Style
- Italianate
- Materials
- Prudham sandstone ashlar, red brick, Welsh slate roofs
- Grid reference
- NZ 356 685
- Opening hours
- Open on Tuesdays 10am to 1pm.
- Access
- Non-accessible toilets in church. Level access to the main areas. Accessible toilets in church
Overview
Historic England records a former New United Presbyterian church of 1856 to 1857 by John Dobson, with late-nineteenth-century wings and an early-twentieth-century hall, in Italianate style. The main block is two storeys and five bays of Prudham sandstone ashlar, rusticated and quoined on the ground floor, with a Doric colonnade to the first-floor windows and a balustraded parapet. Brick east and west wings and a hall facing Norfolk Street were added later.
The foundation stone was laid on 20 October 1856 by William Shaw Lindsay, MP for Tynemouth; the church opened on 27 December 1857 with a sermon by the Revd John Ker of Glasgow. It was built by James and Matthew Robson of North Shields at a cost of nearly £2,500 and seated 660. An organ by Forster and Andrews of Hull was installed about 1884. The Howard Street and Northumberland Square Presbyterian congregations united in 1949; in 1972 the congregation became part of the United Reformed Church. The listing notes stained glass by Leonard Evetts and woodwork by Robert Thompson of Kilburn.