St John's Church House

Cadw's description

Location

Behind the church of Saint John.

History

Built in 1935-7, by S Colwyn Foulkes, architect, of Colwyn Bay.

Exterior

Buff brick with cable moulded string courses and concrete tiled and flat roofs behind parapets. Flat roofed main hall is splayed in plan,with stepped fly tower at its
narrowest end, blindwalled aisles, and clerestory windows. Fly tower terminates in deep band of rusticated brickwork forming a frieze. Curved inner wall at the wider end of the hall echoes the curve of the gabled frontage range, which houses meeting and service rooms and the main entrance in recessed carved splayed porch, the doorway with hollow chamfered brick moulding to the arch. Cable moulded cornice, and parapet.
Flanking windows (all metal casements with leaded lights and splayed brick heads)
grouped as 2 and 4 lights. This gabled range terminates at either end in flat roofed blocks, with narrow windows in slightly sunk openings.

Interior

Interior characterised by the use of exposed, slightly glazed brick for dressings. Main hall is splayed in plan, with curved end wall, flanked by an outer corridor that runs between the hall and the smaller meeting and service rooms. Aisles to either side of the hall are stepped up from its floor level, and the arcade has flat arches carried on plain piers with unmoulded chamfered brackets at the angles. Stage at the narrower end of the room; the curved rear wall has a series of 'porthole' windows opening from the flanking corridor. Meeting rooms on the other side of this corridor have simple exposed brick fireplaces, one with inset blue and white tiles.

Reason for designation

An excellent example of its period, the building combines modern movement and Neo-vernacular elements in its design and use of materials.