St James the Great, Newgate Street, Morpeth, Northumberland

This Neo-Norman church was built in 1844-6 by the architect Benjamin Ferrey for the Reverend Grey (the sixth son of Earl Grey of Reform Bill fame). The Reverend Grey, who had spent his honeymoon in Italy during 1840,  wanted his new church to be similar in style to the cathedral at Monreale near Palermo, Sicily. Ferrey obliged, designing a thoroughly Norman building which could seat 1,030 people. The tiled pavements in chancel and sanctuary were manufactured by Minton's, and some (possibly all) of the tiles were actually donated by Herbert Minton to the church. A letter of 2nd June 1844 from Minton to the Building Committee of St James tells how he felt it to be 'a privilege in helping forward the good and holy work in which you are engaged'. Italian craftsmen were engaged to lay the tiles. The photographs begin at the west end of the chancel and end in the sanctuary.

	Cruciform design between the choir stalls.
	Tiled risers leading from the choir to the area of the chancel just before the sanctuary.
	Symbols of the evangelists separated by lines of text occupy the broad platform just below the sanctuary.
	Steps to the sanctuary - note the reversed 'D' in 'clothed' on the middle step; this error also appears in the pavement of the Lady Chapel at Wells, which was laid by the same Italian paviours.
	Sanctuary tiling, also showing the apse murals, now flaking badly. They were painted in 1875 by the artists Hewitt and Macdonald of the London firm Clayton and Bell.
	Repeat patterns in the sanctuary.

These photographs hardly convey the size and decorative splendour of this extraordinary church. More details may be found in the exemplary guidebook 'An Historical Guide to the Church of St James the Great, Morpeth' by Marilyn N. Tweddle (Tweddle, Morpeth, 1994).