Conclusions

The four principal research aims of this project have been successfully achieved;

(i) The Tees Archaeology Sites & Monuments Record for this building has been significantly enhanced, with copies of the completed report, photographic and site archives deposited with the unit. (ii) A RCHME Level 3 record of the building has been completed, providing a reference point for future research and recording. (iii) An assessment has been made of the potential survival of similar buildings in the Teesside area and a second corrugated iron sheet church (no longer in use), identified and photographed at the former ironstone mining village of Dunsdale in Redcar & Cleveland. (iv) The results of the project have been made available to the general public with copies of the completed report being deposited with the Pentecostal Church, Tees Archaeology, Redcar Central Library, Kirkleatham Hall Museum, Redcar, and Teesside Archives, Middlesbrough.

The completion of this first in-depth survey of a corrugated iron public building in Teesside and the identification of a similar building at another ironstone mining village, Dunsdale, show there are clear parallels to be drawn with the results of Emery's County Durham survey.

It can be seen that the basic conditions required for the construction of these buildings was the same in both Durham and Cleveland, being simply 'new' and rapidly expanding mining communities with no convenient place of worship or gathering. That the commodity being mined was coal or ironstone was irrelevant. Unlike many older, more complex buildings, the principal interest in this building is not in its development but in its historical and socio-cultural role in these communities.

Though popularly perceived as "temporary" structures, the survival of North Skelton's 130-year old "tin tabernacle", together with the church at Dunsdale and the sixty five similar public buildings recorded in County Durham, clearly illustrates their durability and longevity.

With no less than three corrugated iron sheet buildings constructed in North Skelton alone, two Methodist chapels (Weslyan and Primitive), and a Mission Room, it is clear that this type of building was more widely used in the Cleveland region during the late 19th century mining "booms" than the current archaeological record shows. The low recorded number of such buildings may in part be due to the very qualities that made them so widespread; while being relatively simple to erect, they were equally simple to dismantle or demolish.

In the absence of accurate data, it can be reasonably assumed that many have been lost through the redevelopment and regeneration of many former mining villages. Indeed, shortly after the completion of the measured survey element of this recording project, the site was put up for sale.

Further regional documentary and fieldwork studies of this class of building are clearly required. An appropriate first step would be the compilation of a comprehensive listing of all such surviving buildings leading to the implementation of a rapid-survey programme to identify current and potential threats to the survival of the building. This in turn should encourage further comparisons to be made with the Durham survey, leading to a greater understanding of the building design, construction techniques and socio-cultural roles played by this all too often overlooked class of public buildings.

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