METHODIST CHURCH, GATES AND RAILINGS

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Restrained single volume church with façade gable facing south and set obliquely onto Sandys Street. Later hall to rear and detached manse to rear right (HB16/26/016B).

Natural slate roof with pedimented gable. Half-round cast-iron gutters and circular downpipes. Circular copper ventilator to centre of ridge.

Façade is lined cement render on chamfered granite plinth with painted projecting stone platband at first floor level and painted stone pediment dressings. Running across the façade at eaves level is a broad raised render platband and painted moulded stone cornice to pediment. In centre of tympanum is a moulded-edge recessed stone plaque with raised lettering ‘Methodist Church 1841’. Platband and coping are returned thickness of wall at corners.

Ground floor is blank except for central ashlar granite door case raised up three granite steps. Door case comprises four square columns, with simple moulded heads, forming large central door flanked by narrower side doors, supporting a granite entablature, over which is a cornice and shallow pitched blocking course (level with platband). Central doors are three painted timber leaves (right two hinged together), each with three raised and fielded panels. Side doors are similar, two leafs wide. All have stained glass transoms over. The central section of the façade is slightly recessed at first floor level and contains a round headed stained glass window. Similar windows to left and right are centred on wall panels either side of recess.

Left (west) elevation is lined render with projecting stone eaves course. Four equally spaced, round headed stained glass windows to first floor as front façade. Below are three shorter segmental headed stained glass windows in line with first three upper windows from left. Wall under fourth window is blank. All windows have granite cills. At extreme left, later hall abuts.

Back gable is also abutted by double height hall. Exposed section of gable is rendered and blank.

Right (east) wall, is exactly as left wall but has four windows to ground floor and continuous rendered projecting platband to first floor cills. At right, a short low rendered brick wall connects the corner of the church to the corner of the manse.

Hall

Aligned with its axis parallel to that of church, but offset to left, so that it projects beyond left wall of church, and is inset from right wall. Pitched natural slate roof with verges coped in concrete. Rendered chimney rises from wall head at right. Half-round metal rainwater goods and plain lined render walls. Line rendered walls throughout.

Offset elevation to front left (south) has a small opening casement with granite cills and segmental heads to each floor.

Left elevation (west) has three unequally spaced openings. At right, up one granite step, is a shallow projecting door case with lead covered pedimented head. Contains a pair of six flat panel grained timber doors with segmental headed fanlight over, now infilled with plywood to leave a small rectangular window. At left and at centre is a large segmental headed sliding sash window with wide margin glazing and horns. Granite cills set high so top of each window is just below eaves level. Above door case is a short segmental-headed, margin paned window with central pivot light (the head of which is in line with the two to its left).

Rear (north) gable has plain lined render walls on raised base course with two high windows matching those on left elevation. Small louvred ventillator high in gable. A small single-storey outbuilding abuts at left (q.v.).

East façade also has two high windows, matching those on left façade. At left are two smaller windows, both 1/1 sliding sash above a short three-pane fixed light.

In gap between hall and manse, abutting back of church, is small outbuilding with natural slate monopitch roof, half-round plastic gutters and harled walls. Timber sheeted door with four-pane transom.

At back of hall is a narrow alley, to rear of which is a small single storey outbuilding with pitched natural slate roof and adjoining flat roofed garage.

Along Sandys St frontage is a wrought-iron railing with foliated arrowhead tops over chamfered granite plinth. Cast-iron compound gateposts contain a pair of wrought-iron gates with horizontal quatrefoil motifs across middle. Smaller side gate at right, hung from single gatepost.

Historical information

Erected 1841. Manse built in early 1870s. Hall added sometime between 1873 and 1903.

Primary Sources:

1. Datestone
2. Valuation revision books, 1866-1930, PRONI VAL 12B/22/14C;
3. Valuation revision books, 1866-1930, PRONI VAL 12E/125/1/8;
4. OS 6" map, PRONI OS 8/20/3/2.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

Single volume church. A restrained classical exterior encloses a dramatic, and largely original, double height church with galleries on three sides.The whole composition, including the attractive and unusual rear hall and the elegant front railings, is of special architectural interest, complemented by the quality of the adjoining buildings and the general setting.