United Reformed Church, adjoining manse and attached front wall

Summary

Chapel and adjoining manse built in 1806 with later C19 extensions.

Reasons for Designation

The United Reformed Church, an Independent chapel and adjoining manse built in 1806, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* In an undemonstrative Georgian style, well-proportioned with restrained detailing, reflecting the temperate values of the Independent congregation in the early C19;
* The interior has surprisingly delicate plasterwork decoration and, most significantly, an almost intact galleried interior with a full set of original panelled and numbered box pews;
* United Reformed Church is the oldest surviving Independent chapel in Lincolnshire with its original seating intact, and a rare example nationally of a remarkably well-preserved non-conformist chapel of this period;

Historic interest:
* Together with the contemporary burial ground and Victorian Sunday School (unlisted), it represents an important historic ensemble that embodies the key social and cultural role enacted by non-conformist communities throughout the country.

History

The chapel and adjoining manse was erected by the Barton Independent congregation in 1806. There was a considerable growth in the number of dissenting congregations during this period: out of the 1,961 licences granted by the Lincoln Diocese between 1740 and 1844, nearly half were for Independents or Protestant Dissenters. In Lincolnshire, the Independents grew from one or two congregations described as Presbyterian or Independent in the early C18 to having 38 places of worship by 1851. The Barton Independents were the oldest dissenting congregation in the town. Their earliest recorded place of worship was a house in King Street and they met at several locations before the Providence Chapel, as it was then called, was established in 1806. The Independents were the first dissenting group in Barton to build a chapel and have a burial ground solely for their own use. This has now been cleared of above ground memorials with the exception of two tombstones which survive in situ, one of which bears an inscription to the Rev. John Winterbottom (the Chapel's second Pastor), his wife, Ann, and their daughter Sarah Ann. Several headstones are stacked up nearby.

During the ministry of James Hoyle between 1859 and 1864 the chapel was refurbished, involving the addition of the entrance porch, the re-slating of the roof, and the installation of the pulpit and communion rail. The extension for the organ chamber and vestry/meeting room was built before 1887 when it is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map, and the chapel windows were re-glazed in 1898. The Sunday School to the north-east of the chapel was built between 1865 and 1873 during a time when the Nonconformist and Anglican churches in the town were developing their Sunday and Day Schools. The school was converted into domestic use in the early 1990s. In 1972 the Barton Congregational Church was incorporated into the United Reformed Church which closed in 1991. In the 1990s a small extension was built onto the rear of the manse.

Details

Chapel and adjoining manse built in 1806 with later C19 extensions.

MATERIALS: the building is constructed of locally-made richly coloured red brick with rubbed brick and stone dressings. On the side elevations the brick is laid in English garden-wall bond. The front elevation of the chapel is laid in Flemish bond whilst that of the manse is irregular. The roof of the chapel and the front slope of the manse is clad in Welsh slate, and the remaining roofs are clad in pantiles.

PLAN: the chapel faces south onto Chapel Lane and has an approximately rectangular plan with an adjoining manse on the west side and a later C19 extension at the rear.

EXTERIOR: the two-storey, three-bay chapel has a pedimented frontage with York stone coped gable ends and kneelers, two courses of buff-coloured brick and a string course of brick at eaves level. A circular panel with a brick surround in the tympanum bears the worn inscription PROVIDENCE CHAPEL 1806, over which is UNITED REFORMED CHURCH in eroded paint lettering. The flat-roofed porch of 1859-64 has moulded stone coping and square angle pilasters. The central round-arched doorway, flanked by square pilasters, has a double-leaf panelled door and a fanlight with Gothic glazing bars, probably reused from the earlier entrance, which are both now boarded over. On either side are single, round-arched windows, flanked by larger round-arched windows (also boarded over). The first floor is lit by three round-arched windows under rubbed brick arches with wooden Y-tracery filled with late C19 diamond leaded lights of coloured glass. To the right is a single-storey, flat-roofed, stone-coped stair turret, providing access to the gallery. A short flight of steps leads up to a two-panelled door, the upper panel shouldered, in a moulded wooden frame, under a segmental brick arch. The rear side of this projection is lit by a round-arched window with Y-tracery. The roof has recently collapsed inwards.

The east elevation of the chapel has a dentilled brick cornice and is lit by three windows with Y-tracery on each floor in the same style as those on the front elevation. In between the last two windows is a double-leaf panelled door with a stone lintel, inserted in the later C19 or early C20. Against the rear (north) gable end of the chapel, which has tumbled-in brickwork, is the lower two-storey late C19 hall and organ chamber extension with a chimney projecting from the gable end. It is lit on the east elevation by two square-headed two-light windows under segmental brick arches and a round-headed sash window above. A window to the right on the ground floor is bricked up. The west elevation is similar except it has only one ground-floor window. A single-storey lean-to extension, probably added soon after, projects on either side and has segmental arch apertures.

To the left of the chapel, the adjoining manse has two-storeys and an attic under a pitched roof with tumbled-in brickwork, a catslide to the rear and a wide brick ridge stack. The single-bay front elevation is lit on each floor by an eight-over-eight pane sash window, that on the ground floor under a keyed and rusticated wedge lintel. The gabled three-bay west elevation has a centrally placed C20 door and a later C19 canted bay window to the left with one-over-one pane sashes. The first floor is lit by two six-over-six pane sashes under segmental brick arches, followed by a third bricked up opening. The three small sash windows that light the attic are late C20 in date, as are the sashes below. On the rear (north) elevation there is a bricked up door with an eight-over-eight pane sash under a segmental brick arch to the left, a small sliding sash to the right, and a two-over-two pane sash above. To the left, the small lean-to late C20 extension has a door flanked by small windows.

INTERIOR: the double-height chapel retains the original brick-lined floor and grave slabs, and Georgian box pews with panelled doors and numbering, arranged in three sections with two side aisles. Around three sides of the upper floor, the original round-fronted gallery retains tiers of similar box pews and is supported by slender timber columns with Doric capitals. The panelled gallery front has a moulded handrail and panelled soffit, and is embellished with a dentilled cornice and a roundel in the centre. The ceiling retains the original fluted cornice and plasterwork roundels with foliate centre pieces set in surrounds embellished with Greek-key or bead moulding. There are numerous wall plaques, including one to Catherine Ann Scott, one of the Chapel's benefactors. At the north end of the chapel the rostrum supports a Victorian pulpit with a panelled front behind which two flights of steps with ornate cast-iron balusters lead up to the octagonal pulpit. This has a moulded cornice and panelling with composite pilasters at the angles. Behind the pulpit, a wide basket-arch opening with a panelled front was created in the later C19 to provide access to the organ chamber which has two rows of pews and an elaborately decorated organ. Beneath this, the meeting room retains an original brick-lined floor; the stair with moulded, closed string and turned balusters up to the organ chamber; and the panelled door with panelled soffit and jambs which leads into the chapel.

The manse contains two reception rooms and a former kitchen at the rear, now a utility room, with bedrooms on the upper floors. Little of the C19 joinery, fixtures and fittings survive, other than the plain stair with wooden stick balusters and closed string, and a first-floor fireplace with plain wooden surround and round-arch inset.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: a low brick wall runs along the pavement at the front of the building, flanked by York stone piers with cross-gable capstones; the left one has been removed but is retained. The area between the building and the wall is paved in York stone slabs. The area in front of the Manse is paved with re-used grave stones.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

165538

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Stell, C, An Inventory of Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting-Houses in Eastern England, (2002)
Harris, John, Pevsner, Nikolaus, Antram, Nicholas, The Buildings of England: Lincolnshire, (2002)
Ambler, R W, Churches, Chapels and Parish Communities in Lincolnshire, 1660-1900, (200)

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