Nonconformist Churches In Northumberland National Park : By P F Ryder

There are only three nonconformist churches within the National Park, all formerly Presbyterian (and now United Reformed Church), making it a sharp contrast to the Pennine Dales thirty miles to the south where virtually every hamlet had either a Wesleyan or Primitive Methodist Chapel, and frequently both.

None of the three buildings are of outstanding architectural merit, but chronologically they are spaced out through the 19th century, and are each very typical of their era. Birdhopecraig of 1826 is very much an archetypal nonconformist meeting house; it could equally well have been an urban Wesleyan chapel.

Well built but plain, it is very much a Georgian 'preaching box' with a gallery sweeping around three sides and a hipped roof. It survives relatively unaltered, except for one very typical 20th-century change; the rear part of the gallery, the seating that it offered long surplus to requirements, has been partitioned off to form a separate room.

Then comes Harbottle of 1854, now disused. It is not clear whether anything of the internal arrangements survive, but externally this is a building that looks much more like a church; the form is still a simple rectangle but the style is the popular lancet Gothic, not particularly scholarly, in vogue across the whole country, relatively plain but with exuberant touches in a bell-cote like turret on one end and a spiky finials on the other.

Finally, Falstone combines the contrasting aspirations of Georgian and High Victorian nonconformity, chaste functionality and prosperous display. The original 1807 preaching box was very much a typical Georgian independent chapel (cf. Glanton) in having a characteristic elevation in which two larger arched windows flanked the pulpit, and originally had a vertical pair of smaller windows to each side, lighting the spaces above and below the galleries. In 1876 it was remodelled to suit current taste, and to give more of the impression of being a church.

The interior was turned round to face one end - admittedly west rather than the Anglican east - rather than the side, and a porch-cum-tower with some quirky architectural detail added, topped by a spire. The galleries were done away with. Later still came 20th Century changes, again typical throughout nonconformity, the altar replaced the pulpit as the central liturgical focus, and declining numbers allowed the rear part of the interior to be partitioned off, like the back of the gallery at Birdhopecraig, to provide a separate room for social functions, or small meetings.

Picture : Harbottle Former Presbyterian Church