STOCKTON WARD 



STRANTON 



our councillors. The borough commission of the 

 peace was granted in 1893, and West Hartlepool was 

 made a county borough in May 1902. 



The church of JLL SJINTS 

 CHURCHES stands on an ancient and elevated site 

 on the south side of the modern town 

 of West Hartlepool, but originally towards the west 

 part of the village'' of Stranton. The level of the 

 churchyard is considerably above that of the road 

 which forms its boundary on the east and south sides, 

 but the site is now hemmed in by modern buildings 

 on the north and west. The church consists of a 

 chancel 36 ft. by 16 ft. 6 in., with north aisle and 



on the following lines. About 1280a north aisle was 

 added to the nave and a west tower built, the tower 

 arch and the north arcade being approximately of this 

 date, and in the 14th century the chancel was appa- 

 rently reconstructed, the south aisle of the nave added 

 and the tower remodelled and rebuilt in its upper p.irt. 

 In the 1 5th century the chapel was added on the north 

 side of the chancel, the whole of the north chancel wall 

 being taken down and a:i arcade of two arches inserted. 

 A new chancel arch was also erected, and the porch 

 may be of the same date, and probably other alterations 

 were made in the building at the same period, the 

 clearstory being possibly then added, but the plan re- 



Stranton Church from the South 



chapel and south organ chamber, clearstoried nave 

 49 ft. 6 in. by 18 ft. 2 in., with north aisle 17 ft. 

 9 in. wide and south aisle i 2 ft. 6 in. wide, south 

 porch and west tower I 5 ft. 6 in. by I 2 ft., all these 

 measurements being internal. There are also two 

 modern vestries on the north side. 



The earliest portion of the building is the lower 

 part of the east and south walls of the chancel, which 

 is apparently of 12th-century date, the jamb and 

 springing of a semicircular arch being still in lilu in 

 the east wall inside, about I 5 in. from the south-east 

 corner. Five voussoirs of the arch alone remain of 

 what was the southern light of the original east 

 window, the springing of which is considerably lower 

 than that of the present pointed opening. This and 

 the adjoining masonry are the only fragments remain- 

 ing in situ of a church consisting of a chancel and 

 probably an aisleless nave, the dimensions of which 

 m.iy have been approximately the same as at present. 

 Some fragments discovered in 1889 during the con- 

 struction of the organ chamber probably belong to this 

 1 2th-century church, and include two small sunk crosses 

 — probably consecration crosses. The church has been 

 much tampered with from time to time, but the 

 development of the plan seems to have been somewhat 



' Surtee*, op. cil. iii, 1Z4. 



mained unchanged down to modern times. Great 

 alterations were effected in the fabric, however, in the 

 I Sth century, when a gallerj- was erected in the north 

 aisle, and the nave roof completely altered on that side. 

 The north clearstory was then done away with, the 

 aisle wall raised and the new roof taken at a flatter 

 pitch over both nave and aisles on that side, the south 

 clearstory remaining unaltered. The chancel roof 

 was also altered either at this or some other not very 

 distant period, the side walls being raised and a roof 

 of flatter pitch erected. The chapel on the north side 

 of the chancel was turned into a school, the arches 

 being closed up, and the fabric also underwent the 

 usual ' improvements ' of the period, inside the roofs 

 being ceiled and the w.ills and stonework limew.ished. 

 Surtees, about 1823, calls it a ' handsome structure of 

 ashlar work,' " but Sir Stephen Glynne in 1 843 styles 

 it ' a church of some appearance but little good work.' * 

 In 1852 a general restoration took place, in the course 

 of which the chancel aisle or chapel was opened out, 

 the piers and arches of the nave arcades stripped of 

 their many coats of whitewash and re-chiselled, the 

 greater part of the walls stripped of their plaster, and 

 a vestry opening from the north-west corner of the 

 chapel added. A further restoration of the interio 



Ibid. 



' Pne, Soc. Antij. NtvKOiili (Scr. 3), iii, 120. 



373 



