Page:History and characteristics of Bishop Auckland.djvu/134

mSTOEY OF BISHOP AUCKLAND. 107 The taste for improvements having been thus slightly indulged in, it was scarcely to be expected that the interior of the church could be allowed to remain very long in its then present state. At a parish meeting, held in 1854, a committee was appointed to take into consideration the imperfect state of the pews, with a view to their improvement, or the entire re-pewing of the churcL This committee does not appear to have undertaken the work allotted to it with much spirit, for we find, at a vestry meeting held in 1858, that it was superseded by the appointment of a new and smaller committee, and it was recommended at the same time that a public meeting should be called to take the matter into consideration, and to ask for subscriptions in aid of the work On the 6th April, 1859, a public meeting of the inhabitants was held in the Barrington School — the Lord Bishop of Durham in the chair — when it was resolved as follows : — 1. That the pews of the Pariflh Church of St. Andrew's Auckland, being in a very dilapidated condition, it is desirable that some steps be taken at once with a view to its being repaired. 2. That a Committee be appointed to decide upon a plan for re-seating the Church ; to procure estimates for the same ; and to make arrangements for the carrying of such plan into effect. 3. That a subscription list be opened. This was followed by a public meeting of the pew-holders and parishioners, convened by the churchwardens, and held in the vestry-room of the parish on the 29th September in the same year, when it was resolved that the old pews should be removed and the church re-pewed, in accordance with the plan supplied by Mr. Austin, architect The contracts for the work were let in two parts — ^Mr. Edgar taking one-half the church and Mr. Nelson the other. These gentlemen so arranged their work as to interfere very little with the regular services, and in a very short time the present handsome and appropriate sittings took the place of the old dilapidated and inappropriate pews. Whilst the re-pewing of the church was proceeding, orders were also given for the pointing of the external walls of the building, the reparation of the stonework of several of the windows, and the re-glazing of others, so that the spirit of change and improvement, which had been so long dormant, seemed at length to be fully aroused. At a vestry meeting, held in May, 1861, a letter was read from William Hodgson, Esq., to the minister and churchwardens, expressing his wish to present a pulpit and lectern to the church, which offer was accepted, and a minute entered recording the grateful sense of the meeting for this very handsome donation. The present pulpit was shortly afterwards erected, from a design by Mr. Austin, and since Mr. Hodgson's death a brass plate has been fixed in the interior recording the name of the donor. The re-pewing of the interior of the church having been completed, the removal of the unsightly and unnecessary gallery came pretty much as a matter of course, and at a vestry meeting, held in 1862, its removal was unanimously agreed upon, the work being entrusted to Messrs. Nelson and Edgar. The space under the tower of the church was partitioned off by an imsightly brick screen and used as a coal-house, and it also contained the fires for the flues warming the churcL In 1867, Mr. W. V. Thompson, architect, prepared plans for securing access to the fires from the outside of the church, and shortly afterwards this idea was successfully carried out, and that portion of the church under the tower was restored to its original state. Since 1867, the Vicar and Churchwardens have been gradually carrying out such of the suggestions of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland, already referred to, as the funds at their disposal have permitted. Among these improvements are the restoration of two mouldings and the opening out of two of the windows in the porch- way at the south entrance, which had for many years been blocked up. In the interior, the effigies of PoUard and Mrs. BeUasis have found a resting-place under the tower, in order to admit of two additional rows of seats in the chancel for the younger portion of the choir. Many of the windows have been filled with stained glass by private benefactors, as memorials of departed friends, and these additions have added very much to the beauty of the ancient edifica Digitized by Google