Tyne and Wear HER(8849): Fenham, Fenham Hall Drive, Church of St. James and St. Basil - Details
8849
Newcastle
Fenham, Fenham Hall Drive, Church of St. James and St. Basil
Fenham
NZ26NW
Religious Ritual and Funerary
Church
Parish Church
Modern
C20
Extant Building
Parish church. 1927-31 by E.E. Lofting; paid for by Sir James Knott in memory of
his sons James and Basil, killed in First World War. Snecked tooled sandstone
with ashlar dressings, moulded plinth and large quoins; graduated Lakeland slate
roof with roll-moulded gable copings. Nave and south aisle; south-east tower;
tall north vestry. Free Gothic style. Double doors, boarded and studded, in
2-centred arches, that at west moulded and shafted, that at south under corbelled
shallow gable. Tall traceried windows of 2 lights to twin-gabled west front and
to nave and aisle; smaller similar windows to tower south front; and 3-light windows
on east of tower and in chancel, this last very tall. Aisle and nave have corbel
table. Tower has 2 small windows above drip mould of east window; Lombard frieze
above these; and paired belfry openings with pierced shuttering under battlements.
Buttressed stair turret at south west has octagonal top with stone spirelet.
Interior: plaster with ashlar dressings; king-post roof; ribbed vault to tower
memorial chapel. 4-bay arcade of chamfered arches on tall octagonal columns;
similar archesto chapel. Arches with Moorish wood screens on north to organ
chamber; one similar arch and oriel screen,above tower chapel, for organ pipes.
Corbelled arcaded stone frieze below sills. Marble-flagged chancel floor.
Inlaid wood altar and retable; elaborately-carved reredos. High quality glass.
Historical, note: said to be built with stone from Dobson's 1830 Newcastle prison,
in Carliol Square, demolished at that time. LISTED GRADE 2
22555
65578
NZ2255565578
Department of National Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural and Historic Interest, 8/236; North East War Memorials Project www.newmp.org.uk; email from Father B. Turnbull 15 October 2009