Library with a historic shop front including stained glass panels.

Stone house next to the Cross Keys Public House.

1902-4 by J.J. Green of Liverpool. Red brick with ashlar dressings, late Gothic, with an east tower. Seats 530.

1902-3 by W & T.R. Milburn and J.E. Miller. Stone with north-east tower and spirelet in free Gothic style. Congregation from Brougham Street Tabernacle. Seats 452. Gothic with tower, ‘somewhat Anglican interior’

1957 by Matkin & Hawkins. Seated 400. Nave and chancel with tall pointed chancel arch of exposed brick. Matching north-east compartments for baptistery and confessional. The church has been internally reordered, from plans prepared in 1997 by Vincente Stienlet. The church is of reinforced concrete portal frame construction, externally clad with russet brown facing brick, roofed with Westmorland slates and with metal windows with reconstituted stone, brick or creased tile surrounds. On plan it consists of a wide aisleless nave and narrower sanctuary. Two projections at the west end, that on the north side originally housing a baptistery. A Lady Chapel gives off the south side of the sanctuary and sacristies give off the north side.

A striking design of the 1950s, although some of the quality of the brick detailing is poor on closer inspection. The interior is notable for its pointed parabolic arches in the nave, perhaps a mid-twentieth century homage to E. S. Prior’s church of St Andrew at Roker.


The church was built in 1954-55 from designs by Reavell & Cahill of Alnwick. Designed to seat 330, it was opened by Bishop McCormack on 23 November 1955. The account in the Northern Catholic Calendar states tantalisingly that the wooden fleche over the church is ‘of French origin, ingeniously constructed and with interesting history’. According to the QIR, this was reconstructed in the 1990s.

In 1995 plans were prepared for the reordering of the church by Vincente Stienlet, but these were not fully implemented.

The church is orientated north-south, but this description follows conventional liturgical orientation, i.e. as if the altar was at the east end.

The church is a striking design of the mid-1950s, built of brown brick laid in stretcher bond on a darker brick plinth, with concrete or reconstituted stone dressings and a steep tile roof. At the west end are two projecting and gabled pointed-arched entrances flanking the west wall of the nave, which contains three square windows (to a western narthex) and a tall lancet window (to the nave). Attached to the southern entrance is a single storey link to the presbytery. The side elevations have tall lancet windows to the aisles, breaking through the eaves into gabled dormers. At the east end the end wall of the sanctuary is windowless, and has a large inset brick Celtic cross which appears to double up at the top as a chimney stack. The end wall is flanked on either side by projections housing a side chapel and sacristy. On the main ridge, at the point of the chancel arch below, is a tall timber-clad fleche, reconstructed in the 1990s.

The western entrances lead into a western narthex below a gallery. The main body of the church consists of a nave of six bays with narrow circulation aisles and a sanctuary flanked by a Lady Chapel to the north and sacristy to the south. The internal walls are of bare brick, except in the sanctuary where they are plastered and painted. The bay divisions of the nave are marked by tall pointed parabolic arches, perhaps a mid-century homage to E. S. Prior’s church of St Andrew at Roker. These are painted red. The side walls of the arches are pierced by narrower pointed arches for the passage aisles. The chancel arch is spanned by a beam with an opening of lunette form over (possibly intended for a rood?). Within the sanctuary, the original painted wooden canopy for the high altar remains against the east wall, but the sanctuary furnishings are otherwise of more recent date and not of particular note. The nave seating consists of plain oak benches, and at the west end there are some well-detailed doors with cruciform window openings.

A functional but well-designed church of the 1960s, reflecting the liturgical changes ushered in with the Second Vatican Council.

The parish was erected in 1960 to serve the new housing estate of Grindon Village, on the western side of the Sunderland borough. A one acre site was acquired, on which to build a church, presbytery and parish hall. A temporary, prefabricated dual- purpose church and hall was built from designs by Pascal J. Stienlet & Son; construction took twelve weeks. This church was opened by Bishop Cunningham on 28 July 1960. A presbytery was built soon afterwards.

The temporary church was replaced by the present building in 1967-68, from designs by Anthony J. Rossi of Consett. It was designed to seat 360 and planned to serve the new liturgy, with seating arranged around the sanctuary on three sides.

The church is of steel-framed construction, externally faced with Swarland buff bricks. The shallow-pitched pyramidal roof was originally covered with flaxboard and Nuraphalte roofing. A thirty foot white conical fleche (originally surmounted by a stainless steel star) rises from the centre of the roof. It is square on plan, with projections at the east and west ends, the former housing the tabernacle and the latter for a baptistery. An entrance lobby is in the southwest corner and an enclosed Lady Chapel in the northwest corner. The floor of the congregational space is laid with woodblock and the original oak benches, made by the Hilton Cabinet Company of Lichfield, are arranged around three sides of the sanctuary. The church was designed from the outset with a forward altar; this and the tabernacle plinth within the apsidal recess are of Prudham stone. The tabernacle recess is framed by projecting fins and a flat projecting canopy, now lost within a more recent suspended ceiling. On either side of this recess, oak statues of the Holy Family by Fenwick Lawson are mounted on the wall (previously in the Lady Chapel).

Recent reordering has seen the removal of the original wooden communion rails and the return of the font to its original location in the baptistery. The church has been redecorated and a good small pipe organ by N. P. Mander acquired from a redundant Methodist church.

A basilica begun in 1929 by Hicks, Charlewood & Steel. Stained glass - east window by D. Marion Grant. Built after a fundraising campaign called 'The Million Penny Fund'. Romanesque style. Beautiful interior. The reredos hold statues of saints and angels below a sky blue dome decorated with silver stars.

Simple effective mission church by N.F. Cachemaille-Day, 1938.

Focal point of the Conservation Area and of the two-row medieval village (HER 352).