Research Notes

Parish Notes Northumberland

Hexham St Mary (Lowgate)

[Population 1911: incl. with Hexham Priory]

Church

The church was built by Mr J. Saint in 1894 at a cost of £426 on ground given by Mr Lumley of Blossom Hill. The initiative for the building was taken by Canon Barker, Rector of Hexham Abbey since 1866, who had been taking services in Bagraw schoolroom, now the WI hut. The east window, an adaptation of Holman Hunt's 'Light of the World' was made by the Gateshead Glass Company and given by Mr W. Biddick. The porch was added by Mr and Mrs J.C. Straker in memory of their infant son. The dedication to St Mary was appropriate because St Mary's Church on the south side of Hexham Market Place had also been a chapel-of-ease to the Abbey. [The Newcastle Diocesan Gazetteer (1982), page 49.]

Carved on the lintel of the porch is the dedication:

This Porch is Erected in Memory of
Roy Merlin Coppin Straker
second Son of John Coppin Straker
and Alice Whittingham his Wife
Born Dec^r 1894 & Died May 1895

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