Windows, Brontë and Cholera: A History of the Church of St John the Baptist

Early 19th century engraving of St John’s Church

For the last of our blog posts on Newcastle’s medieval churches we’ll be taking a look at the church of St John the Baptist.

Firstly, we’ll take a brief look at its history. The first church to be built on the site was constructed in around 1130 with stone taken from Hadrian’s Wall. The only remains of the original church, a Norman window arch can be seen in the chancel of the current church. An anchor’s cell was added to the church sometime in the 1200s, the only remains are a cross shaped squint that allowed the anchorite to see the altar during Mass. One resident of this cell was Christina Umfred who became an anchoress in 1260. The tower was added in 1230, and Robert Rhodes, who paid for Newcastle Cathedral’s Lantern Tower and font, paid for renovation work to be carried out at St John’s in 1451. By the end of the 1400s the church looked very much as it does now. In 1787 the church was at the centre of a murder investigation after workmen working in the churchyard found the headless body of a 15-year-old in a shallow grave. The coroner recorded a verdict of wilful murder and a reward of 20 guineas was offered for any information. Despite this the body was never identified, and no arrests were ever made. In 1937 furniture maker Robert ‘Mousey’ Thompson added new pews to the choir stalls. Thompson was well known for carving a small mouse into his works, and 4 mice carvings can be found in St John’s.

Whilst most of the glass in the windows dates to the 1800 and 1900s St John’s contains two examples of medieval stained glass. The first dates from sometime between 1375 and 1400 and shows the oldest known depiction of Newcastle’s coat of arms (three silver castles on a red shield). This can be found in the north window of the chancel. The second piece of medieval stained glass dates from around 1381 and was made to commemorate the marriage of Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland to Maude Lucy. The Percy Shield depicts the arms of both the Percy family (a lion), and the Lucy family (pikes). It can be found in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.

John Snow

As discussed in ‘Two Burials and a Wedding,’ composer Charles Avison was baptised at St John’s in 1709 and worked as its organist between 1735 and 1736. He isn’t the only famous person with links to the church, in 1786 engraver and writer Thomas Bewick married Isabella Elliot at St John’s. Born in Cherryburn, Bewick was apprenticed to Ralph Beilby at the age of 14. The two later became business partners, and Bewick eventually took sole control of the business. Throughout his career Bewick wrote and illustrated a number of books, mostly on natural history, firstly for children and later for adults. His best-known work, A History of British Birds, was published in 2 volumes, Land Birds in 1797 and Water Birds in 1804. The book is famously referenced in the opening chapter of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, ‘I returned to my book- Bewick’s ‘History of British Birds.’ This isn’t the only time that Bewick featured in the works of Charlotte Brontë. At the age of 16, four years after Bewick’s death, she wrote the poem, Lines on the Celebrated Bewick. Books weren’t the only thing Bewick made engravings for; he designed an engraving for a pamphlet issued by the Newcastle Anti-Slavery Society.

Finally, we’ll take a look at two famous figures who are likely to have worshipped at St John’s. The first is builder Richard Grainger, who lived in the nearby Clayton Street West from 1846 until his death in 1861. Grainger is most famous for designing Newcastle’s Grainger Town, built between 1834 and 1842. Spread over an area of about 26 hectares (89 acres), Grainger Town contains 450 buildings, 244 of which are listed. 29 of these are Grade I listed and 49 are Grade II* listed. By the time of its completion in 1842 Grainger Town contained, 10 inns, 12 pubs, a market, a theatre, a central exchange, a dispensary, a music hall, 2 chapels and 325 combined shops and houses. In 2010, Grey Street was voted the best in the UK by listeners of BBC Radio 4.

The other famous figure who was likely to have worshipped at St John’s is medic John Snow. Born in York, Snow came to Newcastle at the age of 14, and was apprenticed to surgeon William Hardcastle (also from York). Snow was one the first people to attend the Newcastle Medical School and is likely to have studied at Newcastle Infirmary.  At the age of 19 he was sent to work at Killingworth Colliery, were he dealt with a cholera outbreak (we’ll see more of this disease shortly). Between 1833 and 1836 he worked in Co. Durham and North Yorkshire before moving to London. During an outbreak of cholera in Broad Street (now Broadwick Street) in 1854 he was able to prove that cholera was spread through contaminated water and not bad air, or ‘miasma’ as previously thought. He also conducted research into the use of anaesthetics for surgery and childbirth. He administered anaesthetic to Queen Victoria at the births of her eighth and ninth children, Prince Leopold, and Princess Beatrice.

As you can see St John’s Church, like the three other medieval churches has a varied and rich history. This brings us to the end of our series of blog posts on Newcastle’s medieval churches. We hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting.