Dearham Church of St Mungo (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Dearham.
In the historic county of Cumberland.
Modern Authority of Cumbria.
1974 county of Cumbria.
Medieval County of Cumberland.

OS Map Grid Reference: NY07233637
Latitude 54.71395° Longitude -3.44137°

Dearham Church of St Mungo has been described as a probable Pele Tower, and also as a probable Fortified Ecclesiastical site.

There are major building remains.

This is a Grade 1 listed building protected by law*.

Description

Parish Church. Late C12 with C13 additions and north aisle 1882 by C.J. Ferguson. Mixed St Bees and red hammer-dressed sandstone. Graduated greenslate roof with coped gables and cross finials. Square west 3-storey tower may have been fortified; 3-bay nave with 6-bay aisle and south porch; 2-bay chancel. Tower has 2-light west window and 2-light bell openings, but all other windows are small. Nave has C19 2-light south windows. Porch has pointed arch under trefoil niche; south door is C12 with carved capitals and round-moulded arch. Various medieval grave slab fragments built into east wall of porch. Aisle has 2- and 3-light C19 windows. Chancel has priest's doorway and 2 original south windows; small original east window. Interior of tower base is tunnel-vaulted with segmental arch opening into nave. 4-bay aisle of pointed arches on hexagonal columns. C12 font appears to have been a cushion capital, carved with dragons and symmetrical designs in scrolled panels. Medieval grave slabs, 3 built into the aisle wall, and a free-standing Celtic wheel-head cross. North wall of chancel has the internal remains of an original window. Roof, furnishings and fittings all 1882. C19 stained glass in east window only. (Listed Building Report)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1144506
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 8974.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 804.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Visit Cumbria
  Wikipedia entry
  Old Cumbria Gazetteer
Books
- Brooke, C.J., 2000, Safe Sanctuaries (Edinburgh; John Donald) p. 296-8
  Perriam, Denis and Robinson, John, 1998, The Medieval Fortified Buildings of Cumbria (Kendal: CWAAS Extra Series 29) p. 11
  Pevsner, Nikolaus, 1967, Buildings of England: Cumberland and Westmorland (Harmondsworth) p. 120
Periodical Articles
- Collingwood, W.G., 1923, 'An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments of Cumberland' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol. 23 p. 249 online copy

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

Data >	PastScape	County HER		Listing	I. O. E.
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio