The time capsule beneath the lost chapel of Rise Carr

Their numbers grew, and in 1889 they built an enormous, brooding church beside it, and their original chapel became a Sunday School.

Times changed, and in March 1962 the church and the school were put up for sale.

They clung around, growing increasingly derelict, until the 1990s when the Home Housing Association took over the site. Architect Malcolm Cundick was asked to draw up some plans.

The site of the Rise Carr Methodist church - the new buildings reflect the old

“The original ambition was to restore the existing shell and remodel the interior to create either residential or community accommodation,” says Malcolm. “Sadly vandals and substantial arson put paid to those ambitions - I well recall seeing the related plume of black smoke as I played bowls at North Lodge!”

The fire was on Saturday, January 16, 1999, and left the church in such a hazardous state, it had to be demolished the following week. As it came down, 77-year-old Wilf Moody came into view. He remembered how as a 12-year-old in 1933, he watched as the final timber in the Sunday School’s newly laid floor was nailed down and a “time capsule” glass bottle was slid underneath.

Wilf’s father, John, told him: "You'll probably be the only one alive when it's dug up again."

Certainly, 66 years later as the church came down, Wilf was the only one alive who remembered the capsule.

Architect Malcolm Cundick and Peter Wharton, managing director of Wharton Construction, with the 1933 Echo found in the chapel floor and reburied in the new homes

The bottle, by now broken, was located and a tatty copy of The Northern Echo of April 24, 1933, was pulled out along with a letter from the then vicar. They are believed to have been reburied in a second time capsule in the replacement building that Malcolm designed.

“I was briefed by Home Housing Association to design a terrace of social housing units, including one for a family with specific disability needs,” he says. “I attempted some homage to the original Westmoreland Street facade in detailing of the new front elevation, with replica arch detailed gables including stone roundels incorporating a 2000 date stamp.”

So something does remain of the Rise Carr Methodist Chapel… Such chapels are repositories of community memory. After the First World War, two stained glass windows were installed in the chapel.

One was dedicated to the memory of Private Christopher Chipchase of the 11th Durham Light Infantry who, aged 19, was killed on December 19, 1916, at Flers on the Somme. His address was the Alexandra Hotel in Rise Carr, where he worked, but on his army forms he gave his occupation as an “architect and surveyor”. His parents, John and Sarah Chipchase, of Hazelmere House, Durham Road in Darlington, paid for the window.

The second window was dedicated to all 86 Rise Carr lads who gave their lives in the war.

Both windows were consecrated in November 1920 and the following year, Mrs Chipchase paid for a plaque containing all the soldiers’ names to be installed.

It is believed that the plaque is in the Northlands Methodist Church and the windows are in the Bondgate chapel, which is itself now facing an uncertain future.