St Hilda, Hartlepool
St Hilda, Hartlepool
St Hilda's on Church Close, Hartlepool Headland, is a Grade I Early English parish church in the Diocese of Durham, built about 1200 on the site of the seventh-century monastery associated with St Hild.
- Location
- Hartlepool, County Durham
- Country
- England
- County
- County Durham
- City / town
- Hartlepool
- Address
- Church Close, Hartlepool, County Durham, TS24 0DA
- Postcode
- TS24 0DA
- Built
- c.1200 on a 7th-century monastic site; aisles partly rebuilt 15th century; restored 1724, mid-19th century and 1925–32
- Architect
- C Hodgson Fowler (mid-19th-century restoration); J B Pritchett (chancel c.1870); W D Caroe (1925–32)
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Hilda
- Diocese
- Durham
- Parish
- Hartlepool St Hilda
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Early English
- Materials
- Dressed limestone with Westmorland slate roofs; stone slates to the south porch
- Grid reference
- NZ 528 336
- Opening hours
- Wednesdays 10am to 1pm. Saturdays and Sundays 2pm to 4pm.
- Access
- Level access to the main areas
Overview
Historic England lists a church of about 1200 incorporating remains of an early twelfth-century church on a seventh-century monastic site. Aisles were partly rebuilt in the fifteenth century. Restorations followed about 1724 and in the mid-nineteenth century by C. Hodgson Fowler; J. B. Pritchett of Darlington partly rebuilt the chancel about 1870; W. D. Caroe restored the whole church in Early English style in 1925–32. The mid-thirteenth-century tower was restored in 1838, 1893 and 1930; the late thirteenth-century Galilee chapel was restored in 1928; the south porch dates from 1932. The fabric is dressed limestone with Westmorland slate roofs and stone slates to the porch.
The plan is a clerestoried aisled nave and chancel, Bruce chapel, south porch, west tower with north and south aisles, and Galilee chapel. The three-stage tower has massive late thirteenth-century shoring walls and flying buttresses. A mid-twelfth-century west doorway of four chamfered orders is flanked by earlier doorway remains. Alec Clifton-Taylor called the church a glory of Early English architecture in its earliest phase. The building is on Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register. Opening hours include Wednesday mornings and weekend afternoons.