Catalogue description Wood plans and drawings

Architectural plans and drawings and associated items, arranged in folders by ecclesiastical parish and chiefly relating to churches, churchyard crosses and other memorials, parsonage houses, parish halls and other ecclesiastical buildings in the Church of England diocese of Durham. Many of these items were associated with the architect William H. Wood (fl. 1889-1939). The bulk of the collection concerns parishes in County Durham. For this county there is a fair alphabetical distribution of parish folders for parishes from A to H and after R but only one parish (Norton) is represented for the letters between H and R, suggesting that most of the parish folders from the central portion of the series might not have survived or could have been sent elsewhere.

Certain items among six sets of plans bear approval etc. stamps of the Incorporated Church Building Society (ICBS): Chilton Moor, St Andrew, 1893, Dawdon St Hild and St Helen, 1910, East Boldon St George, 1920, Shiney Row St Oswald, 1923-1927, and Swalwell, 1927, all in County Durham, and Winterton All Saints, Lincolnshire, 1903. The ICBS was founded in 1818 to provide funds for the building and enlargement of Anglican churches throughout England and Wales. The ICBS archives are in Lambeth Palace Library. All the plans in the ICBS archive have been digitised and are available at Church Plans On-Line http://www.churchplansonline.org/

Language of materials: English

The plans, drawings and associated items were found in folders in which they had presumably been placed by Wood. Each folder contained material relating chiefly to a single ecclesiastical parish (with some strays) but within each folder the order was often random.

The folders have now been arranged and numbered: alphabetically by historic county, with a miscellaneous section at the end; within each county series alphabetically by name of ecclesiastical parish, with a miscellaneous section at the end of each county series if required: County Durham (WOD/1/1-44 but no.24 not used), Lincolnshire (WOD/2/1-3), Middlesex (WOD/3/1), Northumberland (WOD/4/1-5), Yorkshire (WOD/5/1-3), Miscellaneous (WOD/6/1-2).

Within each parish section the contents have been numbered in one sequence and where possible have been placed in the following order: church and churchyard; parsonage house; parish hall; other buildings chronogically by start date of each building (items for each building kept together).

Within each subsection of a parish grouping (church, parsonage house etc.) the basic order is chronogical and as far as possible RIBA guidelines re order have been followed (preliminary design, design, working drawings, contract drawings then, within each of these sections, plan, elevation, section, details, perspective). In complex cases, e.g. where work was carried out on many areas of a church and also on a number of fitments and furnishings within it, items relating to a particular area of the church or a particular item of furnishing have been kept together, working east-west then, within that, north-south round the church. The size of the plans is given as height first, followed by the width.

Related material in this repository:

Related material in other repositories:

Wood, William H, fl 1889-1939, architect

Permission to make any published use of material from the collection must be sought in advance from the Head of Heritage Collections (e-mail PG.Library@durham.ac.uk) and, where appropriate, from the copyright owner. The Library will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.

There are no restrictions on access except in the case of very fragile items.

The Wood Plans and Drawings were identified and accessioned as a separate deposited collection on 7 September 1993.

From an unknown date up until 1993, when it was identifed as a separate fonds, this material was housed in St. Helen's Chapel, Durham. For most of the twentieth century up to 1993 this Chapel was used as a store both for some of the Muniments of the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral (amongst which the Wood Plans and Drawings were found) and also, at certain periods from 1948 onwards, for some other collections of archives in the care of the University of Durham. The Chapel is situated adjacent to the office in The College (i.e. the Cathedral close), Durham which was occupied up to ca.1955 by a succession of architects who worked for the Cathedral and diocese of Durham (including, after C. Hodgson Fowler and W.H. Wood, Cordingley & McIntyre, the predecessors of Hayton, Lee & Braddock).

The circumstances surrounding the arrival of this material in St. Helen's Chapel are now uncertain. It might have been placed there for safe-keeping by W.H. Wood or one of the successors to his Durham architectural practice. Alternatively it might be part of the group of "miscellaneous plans" which was deposited with the University of Durham by the Dean and Chapter of Durham on 8 October 1971, and which had evidently earlier been housed in the Durham Chapter Office (in the same complex of buildings as the architects' office)

• Church of England, Diocese of Durham
• Oliver and Leeson, architects, Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland
• Oliver, Leeson and Wood, architects, Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland
• Wood and Oakley, architects, Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland and Durham City, Durham
• Fowler, Charles Hodgson, 1840-1910, architect
• Architectural drawings
• Building design
• Housing design
• Interior architecture
• Religious buildings

This material was catalogued between June and November 2003 as part of a joint Access to Archives (A2A) architectural drawings cataloguing project, "Ashington to Zanzibar", entered into with Tyne and Wear Archives Service and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. A2A is the English strand in the UK archives network.

William H. Wood was an architect who began his career with the Newcastle upon Tyne architects Oliver & Leeson. He eventually rose to become a partner in the firm, which was thereafter known as Oliver, Leeson & Wood; in July 1906 this practice was based at Milburn House, Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1910 Wood began negotiating with Charles Hodgson Fowler, (whose posts included that of Durham Cathedral architect and who did much work for the diocese of Durham), with a view to becoming a partner in the practice which Hodgson Fowler then operated from The College, Durham; both Hodgson Fowler and Wood specialised in ecclesiastical and school architecture. Hodgson Fowler died in December 1910, however, whereupon Wood took over his practice entirely. At first Wood operated from both Newcastle upon Tyne and Durham, but by January 1911 he was apparently based chiefly at 20 Collingwood Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, where he remained until at least 1924. In January 1927 Wood took on a partner, Edmund Oakley. There are references to the practice, now trading as Wood & Oakley, as being based at 4 Cloth Market, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1927-1929, and at 47 North Bailey, Durham, ca.1927. It subsequently moved to 9 Eldon Square, Newcastle upon Tyne. References to Wood & Oakley in trade directories cease after 1939, in which year Wood may have retired or died.

Achitects and architects' and surveyors' practices named on the plans include: Bonomi & Cory, architects, of Durham City; John Bottomley Ltd. [John Mitchell Bottomley], architect; J.W. Claxton, architect; C.C. Hodges [Charles Clement Hodges], architect; Charles Hodgson Fowler, architect, of Durham City; Johnson and Crawford-Hick, architects, of Arcade, Newcastle upon Tyne; G.W. Milburn and Son, [architects?], of Bootham Bar, York; J.H. Morton [Joseph Hall Morton], architect, of South Shields, County Durham and Newcastle upon Tyne; Oliver and Leeson, architects, of Newcastle upon Tyne; Oliver Leeson and Sons, architects, of Newcastle upon Tyne; Oliver Leeson and Wood, architects, of Newcastle upon Tyne; Joseph Potts and Son, architects and surveyors, 57 John Street, Sunderland, County Durham; William Henry Wood, architect, of Newcastle upon Tyne and Durham City, "successor to the late Charles Hodgson Fowler of Durham City and Newcastle upon Tyne"; Wood and Oakley, architects, of Newcastle upon Tyne and Durham City; W.H. Wood and E. Oakley, architects, of Newcastle upon Tyne and Durham City.

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