ST PETER’S CHURCH

HUMSHAUGH

Northumberland

The church from the north-east

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ST PETER’S CHURCH, HUMSHAUGH

The village of Humshaugh is situated on the west side of the North Tyne valley c 8km north of Humshaugh, in Northumberland; its church, which stands in the centre of the village, in the west side of the street, is one of four in North Tynedale (the others are Wark, Greystead and Thorneyburn) built in 1818 by H.H.Seward, house architect to Greenwich Hospital who had taken over the former Derwentwater Estates, and divided up the huge parish of Simonburn, of which Humshaugh was first a chapelry; there was a long-disused medieval chapel (of which some ruins remain) c 1.5 km to the north near Haughton Castle

Description

The Exterior

St Peter’s Church church consists of a simple rectangular main body or nave with a small western porch, a small sanctuary and a vestry set centrally on the north side. It is built of fine tooled ashlar, with tooled-and-margined quoins and dressings, all of pale fawn sandstone.

Unless otherwise stated the openings all have two-centred Gothic arches; the windows all have double-chamfered surrounds and casement-moulded hoods with turned-back ends. There is a chamfered plinth (with a series of small grilled vents to the underfloor space), and pairs of single-stepped buttresses with moulded edges to their sloping tops articulate the south elevation of the main body and are set back slightly at its corners. There is a hollow-chamfered eaves cornice above which, on the gables of the main body and sanctuary there is a two-course parapet above the cornice, with a moulded coping; the roof is of Welsh slates.

At the west end (left) three steps rise to the central doorway of the West Porch, with simple curving metal handrails and an old wrought-iron boot scraper, set on a square block with chamfered edges and a low semicircular arch on each face, to each side. The doorway has a

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chamfered surround, under a hoodmould like that of the windows, and contains a pair of panelled double doors with a panelled tympanum over. There are lancet windows in each return of the porch; on the north a flight of steps descends from north to south to a doorway into the Heating Chamber in the porch basement, set in a chamfered opening with a shallow segmental lintel; at the foot of the steps on the west an opening has been cut through the ashlar wall flanking the steps into an underground storage room with brick walls and a concrete slab roof, of late 19th or 20th century date. The flanking wall has a chamfered coping carrying simple metal rails of the same character as those flanking the porch doorway, which may be original.

The main gable end has a pair of broad lancet windows flanking the porch; directly beneath the northern, in the walling underneath the plinth exposed alongside the steps down to the boiler room, is an inverted blind semicircular arch in ashlar, which appears to be a constructional feature. In the apex of the gable is a circular oculus and above it a bell-cote, corbelled out at its base, with a tall lancet opening carrying a single bell, and a gabled top.

South side looking west

The side walls of the main body have two-centred windows (three on the south, one on either side of the vestry on the north) with simple Y-tracery. The east gable is topped by a feature resembling the western bell-cote, but with a blind lancet on its east face and , above a moulded cornice, a gabled top, set north-south, with two vents in its ridge for the original church heating system.

The Sanctuary, considerably lower than the main body, is unbuttressed; the east window is of three lights, with simple intersecting tracery, with a double-chamfered oculus, with a slatted opening into the roof space; the moulded gable coping has no cross or finial.

The Vestry is set north-south, with the ridge of its gabled roof just a little below the main block eaves cornice. At the south end of the east wall are two steps to a simple chamfered square-headed doorway (with another old bootscraper alongside) and in the north end is a two-light window on the usual type. The gable coping has lost its raised parapet, the moulded coping being re-set at a lower level, with at the apex the truncated base of a chimney stack.

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The Interior

The interior of the church is plastered and colour-washed, except for the exposed ashlar dressings of an internal chamfered plinth, and the surrounds of the openings, which are set slightly proud of the wall and generally have broad internal splays.

The West Porch has a floor of stone slabs, and an under-drawn plaster ceiling with a central roundel in a stepped architrave; towards the nave are a pair of early-20th century panelled double doors, under a leaded overlight, in a tall two-centred arch which has a narrow chamfer on this side of the wall and a broader one inside; on the inner side the doors have an inscription stating that they form a memorial to John Henry Pitman vicar here 1899-1921.

Interior, looking east

Within the main body of the church, the internal plinth is painted brown to match the panelled dado (probably original) which rests on it; the under-drawn plaster ceiling is coved at the sides, where there is a good moulded cornice; set centrally close to each end wall is a circular opening, in a stepped architrave, with a boarded trapdoor to the loft. Set east-of-centre in the north wall is a simple square-headed chamfered doorway to the vestry. The arch to the Sanctuary is of four-centred form; the arch itself has a single chamfer, but the jambs have two, the outer being carried straight up for the full height of the wall, with the effect of producing a recessed panel of wall above the arch itself. On the north of the arch is an old Pater/Creed board, and on the south the Commandments, both of early-19th century character.

Beneath the arch are two steps up into the small sanctuary – only 2.4 m deep by 6 m wide –whilst the altar stands on a third. The panelled dado and carved reredos are of late-19th century character, but the painted ceiling – in faded reds and greens, with a central roundel

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displaying the crossed keys of St Peter, and an arcade of Gothic arches along the cornice ere is clearly earlier, as remains of a scheme of mural decoration (right) seemingly contemporary with it can be seen beneath the altar and behind the reredos. The wrought iron altar rails may go with dado and reredos.

Box pews in the front part of the main body of the church and both side aisles appear to be contemporary with the building; they have panelled sides and rounded corners to each block. In the central aisle, the front block of pews has been bodily moved backwards, creating an open space in front of the steps to the Sanctuary; behind them are seven pews of late 19th/early 20th century character. The font, immediately inside the main door, is a late Victorian piece of white ashlar on a quatrefoil-plan base with coloured marble shafts and 13th-century style carving. The organ, at the south-west corner, was installed in 1920 in memory of William Cruddas of Haughton Castle. High on the west wall are two painted panels with the Royal Arms and Arms of the Commissioners for Greenwich Hospital; lower down, on the north of the door, a small section of stencilled decoration, in red, has been retained from a previous scheme of mural decoration.

The Vestry has a triangular lobby at its south-east corner, allowing separate access between the door in the north wall of the nave and the external door in its east wall. The partition between vestry and lobby with its four-panel door, a range of fitted cupboards on the south wall and a set of floor-level lockers on the east all looks to be of late 19th or early 20th century date. A simple stone fireplace set diagonally at the north-west corner is an original feature; its projection only rises to c 2.5 m above which the corner is square. The ceiling has a central rectangular trapdoor with a moulded plaster surround.

The Heating Chamber, beneath the porch, is interesting in that it has inverted round arches on east, south and west; the first has contained a smaller opening into the heating ducts under the main body of the church, only the ashlar south jamb of which survives – the remainder of the inverted arch is infilled in a mixture of rubble and brick. The other inverted arches are infilled with coursed ashlar.

The Heating Chamber originally housed a furnace associated with a hot-air heating system contemporary with the church; within the church there are flues beneath each aisle/walkway between the blocks of seating. For a description of the flue seen under the southern walkway

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during recent repairs I am indebted to the incumbent Canon Michael Thompson; beneath the stone slab flooring is a central flue c 0.30 m square with side walls of brick and covered by slates in lime mortar, with a narrower duct on either side inside outer walls of rubble. The central duct carried warmed air directly from the furnace, which would warm air in the side channels; these had small inlets from the underfloor spaces on either side beneath the boarded pew platforms, which were between 1 – 1.5 m deep, and are ventilated by the external grilled vents in the plinth. In the tops of the side channels, but spaced at different intervals, were vents with gratings which could be opened or closed, to allow warm air into the church. The two flues beneath the walkways ran from the heating chamber under the porch to the east end of the main body of the church, then ascended vertically on either side of the arch into the sanctuary, to exit through the vents in the gable finial.

The roof structure of the church was not inspected (requioring long ladders for access) but is reported to be similar to that at Thorneyburn, where the trusses are of strapped construction, and have pairs of queen posts, jowelled at top and bottom, with a horizontal straining beam set between them. Principal rafters/blades rise only to the posts, which directly support the upper of two through purlins; there are also raking struts from the bases of the posts to the principal/blade. The rafters continue to the apex, where there is a thin ridge board. There is a circular opening in the east gable of the main body of the building opening into the roof over the Sanctuary.

Faculty Evidence

Deposited faculties relevant to the present building can be summarised as:

12 May 1888, for works to ‘Chapel’. New reredos, raised of altar by 6”, tiling of floor

13 October 1900. South east window as Cruddas memorial.

4 September 1928 Doors to western vestibule

27 Dec 1934 Electric lighting (subsequently renewed with current fittings)

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15 September 1960. Removal of parapets over west porch and Sanctuary (the latter never carried out)

(No faculty could be traced for the removal of the Vestry parapet and stack.

The Heating Chamber, looking south-west, showing inverted arches

Archaeological Assessment

Humshaugh church clearly does not have the potential to reveal archaeological information in the way that a church of medieval foundation would have, but nevertheless it has two centuries of history and has undergone phases of internal change and redecoration, and it is part of a small and extremely interesting group; Seward is only recorded as having built five churches, the four in Northumberland and one at East Witton in North Yorkshire.. Whilst the actual fabric remaining virtually as built – with the small but visually significant losses of the parapets of the vestry and west porch - there have clearly been earlier schemes of mural decoration, evidence of which almost certainly survives beneath the present wall finish, whilst the original underfloor heating system is clearly of considerable interest and would merit proper recording if and when it is next exposed.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Canon Michael Thompson for sharing his detailed knowledge of this and others of Sewards’ churches.

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