Date 1786 on a twentieth century stone refers to the founding of the Wesleyan Society in this village. The present building is of c.1860. School and hall extension of 1872.

By P. Benwell, County Architect, 1973-8. Built of creamy magnesian limestone with slate roof. One and two storey blocks with monopitch roofs enclose a courtyard. Simple sturdy forms which complement the brewery. Only the segmental window arches on the block nearest to it are really derivative.

Small church of 1874-6 by George Gilbert Scott Junior. Chancel 1882. South aisle and north tower never completed. Late Decorated style, similar to Bodley.

Built 1967-71. Linked to Clasper Village of 1969-72. Houses here are brick cubes with projecting square bays of white painted weatherboarding. Back-to-back arrangement along pedestrian walks {1}. Built on the steep north-facing slopes of Windmill Hills, straddling Askew Road. Designed to be a self-contained village of 3500 people. Consisted of a maze of low to medium rise linking blocks with roof gardens on either side of Askew Road, linked by walkways and steps around open communal areas. There was to be a single 17 storey point block. It was intended to be a bold and pioneering showpiece development, opened with great ceremony by Prime Minister Harold Wilson in 1970. It cost £3,700,000. St. Cuthbert's village was never popular. The houses were occupied before any amenities were provided. The estate was intended for young people and couples but elderly people moved in instead. The innovative ceiling heating was inadequate and many homes were cold and damp. The village was demolished in the 1990s. Only the point block (St. Cuthbert's Court) and a concrete footbridge across Askew Road remain. Clasper Village, which was contemporary, was simpler. Old mine workings restricted the housing to two-and-a-half storeys each of 8 dwellings. Unlike St. Cuthbert's Village which had problems of vandalism, anti-social behaviour and neighbourly fueds caused by close-proximity living, Clasper Village was popular and remains well-maintained and attractive. Palmerston Walk comprises of four ground-floor flats with four maisonettes above. A housing development built at Sunderland Road in 1973 followed the linking-block design of Clasper Village {2}.

Typical of 1960s planning. Of eight planned multi-storey office blocks, only three were built 1967-70. Designed by Hubert Ford & Partners.

Sandstone house. Particularly attractive.

1964-7 by Luder & Worthington. Supermarket and department store below a seven storey car park. The car park was made famous by its use in Michael Caine's film 'Get Carter'.

1967 by Peter Tong of Durham.

1939 by Cordingley & McIntyre.

A small church of the early 1970s, of pyramidal construction and roof form, and with a warm, timber-clad interior.

Pelaw became an important manufacturing centre in the early twentieth century when the Co-operative Society set up several factories there to produce clothing and household textiles for sale in their stores of the North East. Those factories have gone, and the employment market has changed.

The parish was erected in 1935 and the present church built in 1972, from designs by Rossi, McCann & Partners. The parish is clustered with St Patrick, Felling and there is no resident priest at Pelaw.

The church has ritual east at actual north; ritual orientation will be referred to in this description. Walls are of buff bricks, roof covering is metallic foil-backed felt; roof lights are of Georgian wired glass with aluminium glazing bars. The pyramidal structure is based on four raking legs, steel encasing laminated beams, rising to a cross finial. An envelope of brick walls forms the church, with a soldier course at eaves level, and a re-pointed or rebuilt parapet above. A boarded timber porch shelters the door. Inside, three strips of roof lights have top-hinged panes, walls are white-painted plaster. Windows are full-height narrow rectangles, filled with interesting but unsigned glass (with symbolic designs) which seems to be contemporary with the building. The laminated beams are exposed. Sanctuary furniture is made of simple blocks, apparently stone, which taper inwards to their recessed black base. Simple, sturdy pews and presidential chair are of varnished light oak, the pews arranged in three blocks round the large sanctuary platform with canted corners. Two steps lead to the altar, and two more to the tabernacle stand. The front panel of each block has horizontal channelling.