Orphan who aspired to be an architect of renown

This architect, John Middleton, has come to fascinate the vicar, the Reverend Brian Torode, as for nearly 40 years he has been associated with a church in Cheltenham that appeared to have no history.

So he peered into it, discovered that the architect built the church in 1873, and then tried to understand the many mysteries of Middleton which stretch from the Tees Valley to the Welsh coast.

As Father Brian delved, he found his church wasn’t alone in being a Middleton: there were four others in Cheltenham alone, plus schools and colleges.

A little deeper, and the Middleton connection pushed into Tewkesbury and Newent, and then went over the border into Wales.

Aberstwyth, Cardigan and Lampeter all have churches, colleges and stately homes built by Middleton, as do villages inbetween with more ls in their name than even my own.

This “obscure provincial architect” had had a profound effect on a large province.

But what had gone before Middleton’s Cheltenham period? He’d arrived in the town out of the blue in 1859, when he was in his late 30s, with his wife and their young son – who was fluent in Italian – in tow.

He seemed set on retirement, but accidentally tumbled into designing churches and during the next 40 years, he completed about 200 buildings.

Father Brian went back farther. He discovered that Middleton was born in York in 1820 and was orphaned at 14. He was left with funds to complete his education in the care of an uncle.

Education duly completed, he became an apprentice architect to James Piggott Pritchett, of York. He fell in love with Pritchett’s daughter, Maria, and became friendly with Pritchett’s son, Richard, a Congregationalist preacher who then moved to Darlington.

Middleton married Maria and, having heard Richard tell of the railway boomtown, moved to Darlington to open his own practice.

He won his first commission in 1844 to build Cleveland Lodge, in Great Ayton, for wealthy Quaker Thomas Richardson, one of the original directors of the Stockton and Darlington Railway who was Edward Pease’s cousin.

Then the work flooded in.

For the railway, he built much of the lost settlement of Waskerley, near Consett.

There were also stations at Redcar and Middlesbrough, Witton-le-Wear, Frosterley, Harperley and Wolsingham.

He also designed the first clocktower for Middlesbrough Docks.

It had three faces telling the time to the dockers and the ships, but the fourth, facing the ironworks, was blank because it was feared that the ironworkers would waste their time clockwatching.

(Middleton’s clock tower of 1847 was replaced with a taller red-brick one in 1903. It still has three faces and is outstanding, one of the grand curiosities of our region, in the industrial wasteland near Middlesbrough FC’s Riverside stadium.)

MIDDLETON’S first major project was Darlington’s Central Hall. The bulk of the £6,000 cost was met by Quaker subscribers and so the hall – a great hulk of a thing now part of the Dolphin Centre – was alcohol-free when it opened in June 1847.

Middleton built his first church in Darlington, St John’s, at Bank Top, between 1847 and 1849. George Hudson, the maverick “Railway King” who had seized control of the new main line, wanted the £4,000 lineside church to be conspicuous and attractive, and Middleton designed a square tower strong enough for a landmark spire, 160ft high, to go on.

But despite the Railway King’s support, there were not riches enough to build the spire.

More church work followed, perhaps most notably Middleton’s refurbishment of 12th Century All Saints Church, in the village of Manfield.

Middleton’s other distinctive Darlington building was completed in 1849 – the National Provincial Bank, in High Row, which is now home to NatWest.

The Builder magazine at the time was struck by the design which, it said most unkindly, “appears to be a rather stylish sort of edifice for such a place as Darlington”.

Something a little odd, though, was going on.

Middleton’s projects were increasingly being completed by his younger partner and brother-in-law, James Piggott Pritchett Jnr.

Indeed, soon his practice was taken over by Pritchett, and Middleton faded out.

By 1855, he had stopped work altogether. By 1857, he had disappeared from Darlington completely. And then, bizarrely, two years later, he re-appeared in Cheltenham with his wife and ten-year-old son, John Henry.

NO one knows what had happened to them in the meantime, but perhaps John Henry’s fluency in Italian is a clue.

They seem to have sold up in Darlington – perhaps motivated by ill health or even a breakdown – and gone on a Continental tour. This culminated in Italy, the home of great architecture, which Middleton obviously liked – NatWest, in High Row, undoubtedly has an Italianate feel to it.

Then, refreshed and rejuvenated, he re-appeared: in Cheltenham, of all places, where he seemed to want to do no more than relax.

But his new local church was growing, and in 1860, the Cheltenham Examiner announced that plans for its new building had been “kindly prepared” by Middleton.

This phraseology suggests that he had designed the new church as a favour. He may not even have gone to any great lengths to do this favour as pictures of St Mark’s, in Cheltenham, look suspiciously like St John’s, in Darlington, which Middleton had designed some 15 years earlier.

Once Middleton had dipped his toe back into the world of architecture, he was unable to stop himself and a career begun but broken in Darlington took off again in Gloucestershire.

And this time, he even got to top off his church as he wanted. St Mark’s has a triumphant 140ft spire, whereas 225 miles to the north, St John’s is spireless to this day.

■ John Middleton: Victorian, Provincial Architect by Brian E Torode is available for £15.50 (including postage) from Rev Torode at 23, Arden Road, Leckhampton, Gloucestershire GL53 0HG. Proceeds go to the Historic Churches Trust.