St John's Methodist Church, Sunderland
St John's Methodist Church, Sunderland
St John's is a Grade II Wesleyan Methodist church of 1887-88 on Ashbrooke Crescent, Sunderland, with an attached hall of about 1907, both by Robert Curwen.
- Location
- Sunderland, Tyne & Wear
- Country
- England
- County
- Tyne & Wear
- City / town
- Sunderland
- Address
- Ashbrooke Road, Sunderland, Tyne & Wear, SR2 7HQ
- Postcode
- SR2 7HQ
- Built
- 1887-88; hall c.1907
- Architect
- Robert Curwen; contractors J H Thorp and Sons of Leeds
- Denomination
- Methodist Church
- Dedication
- John
- Grade
- II
- Style
- Early English Gothic
- Materials
- Rock-faced sandstone with ashlar sandstone dressings; Prudhoe stone tower; Denwick stone interior; graduated Lakeland slate roof
- Grid reference
- NZ 395 558
- Opening hours
- The church is open throughout the week for various activities for the elderly, children and families.
- Access
- Accessible toilets in church. Non-accessible toilets in church
Overview
Historic England lists the church and hall together. The contractors were J. H. Thorp and Sons of Leeds. The fabric is rock-faced sandstone with ashlar sandstone dressings, Prudhoe stone for the tower and Denwick stone internally, under a graduated Lakeland slate roof. The plan is Early English: chancel, five-bay nave with aisles and paired transepts, a four-stage south-west tower with octagonal stone spire, and a north-west porch. Meeting rooms occupy an undercroft to the chancel; a corridor links the church to the hall. The ritual west front to Ashbrooke Road has a gabled canopy over paired doors and a large five-light window. The tower has a door, lancet slits, an arcade and tall paired belfry lancets, with pinnacles, lucarnes and carved bands on the spire.
The interior is plaster and ashlar with a hammer-beam roof on corbelled wall shafts. Furnishings include a pulpit and reading desk on stone pedestals, a brass pulpit handrail in the form of a serpent, a brass and cast-iron communion rail with sunflower ornament, and carved choir pews. Glass includes an 1888 lancet in the north transept, an east window to T. C. Squance (d.1897) and a west Crucifixion window to J. W. Taylor. The church stands in the Ashbrooke Conservation Area.