St Mary's Church, Heworth, Durham

Introduction

Heworth Church was, at one time, the centre of a small village, surrounded by farms and fields, cottages and old buildings. In the last century, no less than four collieries sprang up within the parish boundaries. Over the past hundred years, the parish has grown from a collection of small communities into the large Urban District of Felling. Yet the parish of Heworth has not become a sprawling mass of houses - it still retains its own identities in the "villages" of Old Wardley, Pelaw, Bill Quay, Felling Shore, High Heworth, and The Felling.

Nor have all these changes taken place at once. Worshippers at the Church will still tell you how they remember walking through the fields after Evensong, meeting in the Old Parish Hall, walking down the dip in the road from Pelaw past the Church. Yet things have changed: nearly all the farms have gone; all the collieries in the Parish have been worked out; and the old Parish Hall has had to make way for the Felling By-Pass. Only Heworth Hall (opposite the new Church Hall) remains to remind us of a bygone age.

But people have not changed, and the Church has not been swept away with the march of progress. Heworth Church still stands as a reminder of our ancient heritage and a present-day vital centre of the Christian Faith on Tyneside.

The simple sandstone exterior of St. Mary's Church today looks much the same as it did on its day of completion, 184 years ago. Its walls are the right colour again. A century and a half of heavy industrial pollution had turned them jet black, and on its centenary in 1922, the church wore a look of apologetic gloom. After it was cleaned for its 150th birthday in 1972, its blocks of ashlar resumed their original honey tone.

The roof line is different; since 1960, when dry rot destroyed the original, necessitating a new roof. The well-known clock in the tower was not there until 1883. A good one by Potts of Leeds, and held in affection by the people of Heworth, it was bought by public subscription - a good investment. The lych gate was an addition of 1937 as a memorial to King George V, but the little west gate is very old, as its worn and hollowed step shows. It was the only entrance to Heworth Old Chapel which replaced an even older chapel in 1710. The west gate is probably medieval and had the village stocks beside it until 1834.

St. Mary's vast churchyard expanded repeatedly, as did the parish population. Here, in 1823, William Falla, the renowned nurseryman, carried out the first systematic plantation of trees round the new church, and here near the south door, he lies at rest among them. Heworth churchyard is acknowledged as a treasure-store of social history, where people come to seek their roots and at the same time discover its tranquillity, and the great variety and beauty among hundreds of monuments. Enclosing it is the traditional stone boundary wall, rebuilt, re-aligned or extended over more than two centuries by local masons, who well understood that the church, of Heworth sandstone, quarried in the village, needed walls of the same material to keep the whole harmonious.

"On May 23rd, 1821, the foundations of a new chapel to be built by subscription, began to be dug out at Nether Heworth in the county of Durham, the first stone of which, enclosing an appropriate inscription on copper, was laid the following day. This chapel was opened for Divine Worship on the 25th of May 1822. On the 27th of September, 1828, the Dedication Stone upon south wall and half an acre of new burial ground added to the old chapel yard were consecrated by the Lord Bishop of Durham." (Syke's Local Records)

The builder of the new church, the Revd. John Hodgson M.A. F.R.S. Rector of Jarrow-with-Heworth, 1808-1833, sought separation from Jarrow to form a new Parish of Heworth, but in vain. His successor, the Revd. Matthew Plummer M.A., pursued that aim, succeeding in 1843. Thus Mr. Plummer became the first Vicar of Heworth. His long ministry from 1833-1877, was eventful. He endured three epidemics of Cholera. He suffered persecution through his "Puseyism", (the introduction of organ-led choral music, stained glass, decorative painting and sculpture, vestments and candles). He saw the need to subdivide his large parish and built two new churches, St. Alban's at Windy Nook in 1842, and Christ Church at Low Felling in 1866, both with their own parish. By the time he retired, Heworth was a large industrial town of collieries, chemical works, foundries, shipyards, quarries and quays, with an immigrant population.

Dr. James Steel, vicar from 1877-1917, brought further changes. A Victorian, with a strong sense of authority, he devoted his energy and wealth to the education of Heworth children through his chairmanship of the Heworth School Board, and to the enhancement of the Church interior. John Hodgsons' vision was severely constrained by lack of money, therefore the entire church building outside and in, was substantial but plain. Dr. Steel had no constraints and set about transforming the church.

First, the original stone floor was covered with oak boards and mosaic tiling, followed by an oak panelled ceiling. The Georgian box stalls were replaced with oak pews. A font by W.S. Hicks was set at the west end, though the 18th century font was retained. The tower clock and a Harrison organ were installed, and the splendid carved oak pulpit and a rood screen from the Ralph Hedley workshops gave the final touch of Victorian grandeur.

In 1912, Dr. Steel provided Heworth with its first Parish Hall, on the site of the first school in the village, the Parish School, founded by John Hodgson in 1815. In the same year was unveiled the finest window in the church, a lovely memorial to Mrs. Steel in stained glass by Ballantyre of Edinburgh. This window on the north west wall contributes largely to the listing of St. Mary's as a Grade Two building, and is visited by art experts and Victorian enthusiasts.

It is notable that the ministries of three men, Hodgson, Plummer and Steel, covered one hundred and ten years, while the last eighty years has seen no fewer than eight vicars of Heworth. Each has made a unique contribution to the liturgy and life of the parish. Four vicars have served as Rural Deans of Gateshead - Canon Peter Dennis, Canon Rowlands, Canon Colin Purvis and Canon Ray Knell.

The village school survived until 1975 then vanished to make way for the new Heworth Metro Station. St. Mary's stood on an island amid a sea of traffic, but was further threatened in 1980 by a proposal to extend the Metro system to Washington on its south side, destroying the vicarage and much of Sunderland Road, a scheme which the church people vigorously and successfully opposed.

In 1986 there came a joyful occasion when, after a huge fund raising effort, a peal of six bells was hung in the tower, having once rung in St. Peter's Church, Jarrow. They had lain forlorn in a scrapyard for years. Strangely, Heworth Chapel was given a bell once before, in 1721, from St. Mary's Gateshead - "the little bell given to Robert Ellison for Heworth Chapel, in liewe of the arrears due to the chapelry for the Blew Quarries Spring." It still hangs in the tower.

St. Mary's has a Lady Chapel in the north transept, divided from the nave by the oak screen, which in the 1890s was sent across the chancel, cutting it off from the body of the church. John Hodgson would recognise his church today, even without the three galleries long ago swept away. It is as he designed it once more, all one from the tower to the altar.

Old place names recorded on memorials in Heworth Churchyard

 The practice of putting the deceased person's place of birth or residence on the headstone inscription went out of fashion early this century, and those in Heworth churchyard are almost entirely of the period 1700 to 1900.

Most of the names are very old, and cover the area which was once the Chapelry, then the Parish of Heworth, but is now divided into the four parishes in the Felling group. I have reproduced the exact spelling of the place names: Nether Heworth; South Wardley; High Felling; Heworth Village; Thistley House; Bogg House; Low Heworth; Woodgate; Alliance Villa; Heworth Shore; Bill Queay; Windy Nook; Heworth Lanes; Bill Shoare; Carr Hill; Heworth Dean; Haining Wood; Incline House; Heworth Grange; Hainingwoodgate; Westfield House; Low Lane; Cat Deane; Highburn House; Low Heworth Lane; Cowpath Farm; Greenfield House;High Lanes; Pelaw Main; Woodbine House; High Heworth; Pelaw Staithes; Sward Houses; Heworth Colliery; Staith House; Whitehill; Jonadab;White House; Snowdon's Hole; Heworth Leam; The Tilesheds; The Leam; Ballast Hills; High Leam; The Nest; North Leam; Nest Cottages; Low Leam; Goose Bank; Bank Top; Felling Shore; Springwell Bank Foot; Low Felling; Gingling Gate; Felling Gate; Follonsby; Kirton's Gate; North Follonsby; Garden House; South Follonsby; Pear Tree Place; White Mere; Dempsterville; White Mare Pool; Felling Colliery; Lingy Lane; Quarry Banks; Lingey House; Holly Hill; Wardeley; Felling Lodge; Wardley Manor Farm; Providence Place; Wardley Colliery; Crow Hall