Church of St.James

St. James's United Reformed Church is located on Northumberland Road in Newcastle. It was built 1882-1884 by T. Lewis Banks, originally as a Congregational Church. The people for whom church was built for had a non-conformist / Presbyterian tradition; "St. James’s originates from a number of sources, including an independent chapel of 1744 and a ‘protestant dissenting’ congregation which met in a malt loft in Silver Street in 1684."[1] They moved from Silver Street to a new Presbyterian church, designed by John Dobson in 1826, on the corner of Blackett Street and Grainger Street, partly on the site of Fickett Tower.[2] However, in 1830 the Church of Scotland refused to renew the licence designating St. James' as a Presbyterian Church, so it became a Congregational Church. In 1859 the church was demolished because there were no provision for Sunday School or meetings during the week, to be replaced by a new St James' Church on that site. Unfortunately, the acoustics were poor and it was decided to build a 3rd St. James’ on Bath Road (now Northumberland Road) on the grounds of the old County Cricket Club.[3] In 1972 the Congregational Church and the Presbyterian Church of England, merged to form the United Reformed Church. St. James’s underwent a major refurbishment in 1997. This 3rd St James' Church on Northumberland Road is Grade II listed on the National Heritage List for England.