The Parish Church of Burnmoor 

The Church is dedicated to St Barnabas and was built, to a design by Johnson & Hicks of Newcastle upon Tyne, at the sole charge of George Frederick D'Arcy Lambton whose wife Beatrix Frances Countess of Durham laid the foundation stone on 3rd May 1867. The building was completed in 1868 and dedicated by the Bishop of Durham, Bishop Charles Baring.  The Church is built in the Early English style with a turret at the western end with one bell; internally there is a chancel and nave of three bays, north and south aisles.  The chancel is elegant and beautifully decorated.  The north and south aisles are contrasting; the former with a high, almost flat roof and the latter with a low wall and steeply sloping roof.  The north aisle was heightened and enlarged by the third Earl of Durham in 1881 in memory of his father. The chancel was enriched in 1881 and 1888 when a carved oak screen and reredos were introduced.  The Church now has a seating capacity for 320 worshippers.

The most outstanding feature of the interior of the Church is a huge monument built of white Italian marble on a blue grey pedestal and fashioned in the form of an Angel of Victory. The sculptor is Waldo Storey R.A, who completed the work in Rome in 1894.  The monument was given to the Church by the fifth Earl of Durham in memory of his uncle John George, the third Earl and his father, Frederick William, the fourth Earl; John George and Frederick William were twin brothers, Frederick William succeeding his brother but surviving him only by four months.  The monument was dedicated by Dr Herbert Hensley Henson, the then Bishop of Durham, on 23rd June 1929. The Church contains a number of memorial windows of exceptional quality.  

The organ is the subject of a separate page on this website.

The churchyard contains an outstanding monument, erected to the memory of Beatrix Frances Countess of Durham, in the form of a cross made of Irish limestone and is an exact reproduction of the famous Irish cross at Monasterboice in the County of Louth, Eire.  The celtic ornamentation is copied from some of the finest specimens in Ireland.  On the raised base upon which the cross is placed are slabs of Irish limestone in memory of several members of the Lambton family.  

The first incumbent was Dr Alfred Merle Norman, an Honorary Canon of Durham Cathedral, appointed by the crown, who held the living from 1866 to 1895.  Dr Norman was appointed Chaplain to the Earl of Durham two years before the Church was built and in the absence of a Rectory (built in 1869 and now in private ownership) resided in Lambton Castle. Successive rectors have continued to hold the office of Chaplain to the Earl of Durham, who is Patron of the Living.  

Across the cricket field adjoining the Church stands the former Church Schools, now occupied by Burnmoor Cricket Club; this building was erected in 1877 by the second Earl of Durham and ceased as a school in 1929.

abridged from "The Story of the Parish Church of Burnmoor, County Durham" by Thomas Westgarth