This is the church where I was a chorister 1967-69, altar server (1968-9), Sunday School teacher, organist and choirmaster (1969-73) and, latterly, assistant organist (my sister, Denise, being organist 1974 onwards).
St Lawrence Church and Hall in 1972 prior to the building of Bishop Ramsey Court on the field shown in the foreground
During the period between the Wars, the formerly rural parish of Harton, the largest parish in the borough of South Shields, underwent a transformation in the form of housing developments designed to provide homes for an increasing population and slum dwellers from the older parts of the town. As a result, the parish church of St. Peter was no longer deemed sufficient to cope with the increasing population at the south eastern end of the parish, where in 1939, the erection of a new church was commenced on a green-field site adjacent to Harton Junior Schools in Centenary Avenue between Harton Downhill and Harton Nook on land donated by Sir Robert Chapman Bart..
The building was prefabricated and made mainly of wood and plasterboard, having begun its life as the chapel of a college in Durham (some say Bede College). The partially completed church became a war casualty very early in WWII when a bomb fell nearby causing slight damage. An old ship's bell, engraved with the name of the vessel, served as the church bell used to call worshippers to services. This new place of worship, subordinate to the parish church of St. Peter's, was not opened until 1941. The dedication was possibly a revival of the dedication to St. Lawrence of the chapel in nearby Westoe Village, founded in 1347-8 and thought to have occupied the site of Chapel House.
The long building, which had a lean-to built of brick referred to as 'the boiler house' (though there were no boilers located there in the mid-sixties), was subdivided into two parts by a partition wall, the church itself and church hall being connected by a single central door in this wall. In the 1960s, the 'Tudor-effect' wooden beams on the outside of the building were painted light blue and the panels between were white.
At that time, the church had dark, varnished wooden pews arranged between two narrow side aisles carpeted with coconut matting laid on top of thick, heavy-duty, dark red lino. The ends of some of the pews had carved tracery in perpendicular style. At the end of the church nearest the altar were similar, short pews for the choir facing inwards and separated by a wider central aisle. This led to a step, surmounted by the altar rail, the gap through which lead to the apsidal sanctuary. At the left end of the altar rail was a raised pulpit and, opposite, at the right hand end was the organ console which faced in the direction of the altar. Above the opening in the altar rail, a small, brass sanctuary lamp was suspended. By 1970, this was covered in verdigris.
Two steps led up to the altar, above which was hung a picture of Our Lord, originally in a rectangular frame but, when this was broken, in an oval one (irreverently referred to by some as 'the toilet seat'). Later this picture was replaced for a period by a copy of an icon of the Black Madonna. Until the mid-sixties, the back of the altar was surrounded by a screen. There were white, violet and green co-ordinated vestments, altar frontals and coverings for the pulpit and lecterns. The church did not possess a set of red coverings, the white vestments and coverings being used in their place as they contained some elements of red in the design. On such occasions, the officiating priest would wear plain red vestments from an earlier set of vestments otherwise no longer used.
The church silver consisted of two chalices and two patens of different sizes and a ciborium.
At the back of the church, there was a narrow rear aisle behind the back two rows of pews. The pews along the back wall at either side of the central door were occupied by sidesmen and church wardens. The Victorian font (dating from the 1840s) was located immediately in front of this door in alignment with pews on either side. Next to the church was a field belonging to the church which was used on a Saturday in June for the church's main fundraising event, the annual Field Day.
The organ console was located to the right of the altar rail whilst the pipes were remotely situated in an indecorous loft above the font and the back rows of pews. It was built by the Vincent Organ Company of Sunderland using, allegedly, good quality spotted metal pipework from an earlier organ whose origins remain a mystery. The organ had electric action and the pipes were enclosed in a box with shutters operated by a 'swell' pedal. The organ had a single manual of normal compass and an octave (C-C) of half-length pedals playable (mainly) by the left foot. The stops and coupler were of the pull-out variety:
Open diapason 8'
Lieblich gedackt 8'
Principal 4'
Flauto traverso 4'
Fifteenth 2'
Mixture 1 1/3 '
Great to Pedal
Ostensibly, there were 6 stops. However, there was a substantial amount of duplexing and, in reality, only one complete rank of pipework (the lieblich gedackt). This type of organ is apparently known as an 'extension organ'. Only one rank of pipes (without duplexing) was involved in the Mixture which was actually a mislabelled Twelfth 2 2/3 '. The Flauto traverso and Mixture used the higher octave pipework of the Lieblich whilst the Principal and Fifteenth did the same in relation to the Diapason. Not content with this economy, the builders substituted the lowest octave of the Lieblich for the missing lowest octave of the Diapason. The pedalboard had no stops of its own and only sounded when coupled to the manual, the resulting pedal notes being identical to those of the bottom octave on the manual. This organ suffered badly in cold or damp weather and there were numerous ciphers. The action of the 'swell' pedal would often fail, more often than not leaving the shutters in the closed position (as happened at the end of Christine Starling's wedding service in 1972) and, during such periods of malfunction, it was often necessary to use the window pole to wedge the shutters in the fully open position and forego use of the 'swell' pedal.
Denise Bulley at the organ console in summer 1975
The organ light (arguably the only wholly reliable working part), installed in the early 70s, was my handiwork and is the reason why my Meccano set was missing two metal strips!
The blower was located in the space above the vestry ceiling and its excessive noise and vibration together with the sound of the music emanating from the pipes in the church interfered with a PCC meeting in the church hall on one occasion. Despite the small amount of pipework, the organ had not quite enough "puff" to deal with large chords such as the final chord of Holst's "Personent Hodie" (F major, 4-part root position chords in both hands) and would "wobble" alarmingly. In fact, Martin Talbot, the vicar, asked me to refrain from using the tremulant (the organ had no tremulant)!
In the early 1960s, a parsonage was built on the land between the church and the road to house the priest-in-charge (the assistant curate of St. Peter's) and, in 1971, sufficient money had been raised for the church hall to be rebuilt. The portion of the old building serving as the church hall and vestry was to be demolished but, before this element of the work was carried out, the partition wall with the church was relocated in order to extend the church by one bay. The new hall, kitchen and vestry, built in brick and designed by Peter Tong ARIBA, were built perpendicular to the church across the vacant site, the foundation stone being laid by Sir Robin Chapman Bart. The old church was refurbished, redecorated and recarpeted, a central aisle leading to double-doors being created in place of the two side aisles by cutting the long pews into two and moving them apart. The organ was provided with a new silent blower (located in the organ loft which was still in its original position and now therefore suspended away from the back wall of the church). A silver sanctuary lamp belonging to the church had been in the 'temporary' care of the parish church (St Peter's) since WWII, being usefully employed to light the aumbry containing the reserved sacrament there. This lamp was returned to St. Lawrence's and hung in place of the existing brass lamp (a new lamp being procured for St. Peter's and dedicated to a former sexton, David Campbell). The church hall was blessed and declared open by the Bishop of Durham, the Right Revd. Ian Ramsey in November 1971. The field next to the church was sold and became the site of two bungalows and of Bishop Ramsey Court, a residential home for the elderly.
Interior of the church (summer 1975)
Consideration was given to replacing the organ but the Diocese was unsympathetic towards electronic instruments of the time (those we could afford, so it proved, were tonally very disappointing in any case). A very pleasant but tiny chamber organ (2 stops) which Rev. Martin Talbot, Rev. David Duke and I went to hear in Newcastle would have been inadequate for the purpose and insufficient funds were available for a worthy substitute. The Diocese's organ consultant examined the organ and concurred with the view that a repair was much less cost-effective than straightforward replacement.
At the Christimas Eve carol service in 1974, I directed the choir (who were almost all female) in a large number of pieces for divided female voices, one of which was a very pretty carol by Gustav HOLST A Babe is Born (click here to hear it) in which Janet Greg took the solo part. The service finished with O Come All Ye Faithful. The vicar throughout the years I was associated with the church was Martin R. Talbot M.A.
In 1990, as the result of remarkable fundraising efforts on a national scale, the old church was finally demolished and the congregation gained the church building they had long deserved: rebuilt in brick and rededicated in 1991 by the Bishop of Durham, the Right Revd. David Jenkins. Keeping a promise it had made prior to the start of the project, the Diocese raised the church to the status of a parish church in its own right and the newly created parish of Horsley Hill was carved out of the south-eastern half of the old Harton parish. Thankfully, the original '60s concept of a round (or 'roundish') church had been abandoned by this time in favour of a more traditional (and liturgically sound) plan which makes the best use of the available land. A pretty, walled garden also forms part of the design. The organ is now a 2-manual electronic instrument.
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Last updated: 26/11/01 02:07:57