Maiden Street Methodist Church

Details

WEYMOUTH

SY6778NE MAIDEN STREET 873-1/23/223 (East side) 02/09/96 Maiden Street Methodist Church

GV II*

Methodist church. 1866-70. Architects Foster and Wood, alterations in 1955, from a bequest by John B Cole. Flemish bond brickwork and Portland ashlar front, squared dressed Portland and brickwork sides and rear, slate roofs. STYLE: a lofty building in Lombardic Romanesque. PLAN: the main front is on the axis of St Edmund Street. High nave with galleries to 3 sides, lower aisles, shallow chancel, 2-storey external narthex with stairs to an entrance lobby, undercroft. EXTERIOR: the front is intricately detailed, with a high gable on Lombard bands in stone under an enriched cornice and cresting with central finial. This contains an 8-light wheel window in a deep moulded round arch, above a deep stone apron, flanked by small arched openings in stone dressings, all set to a flush band above a modelled string with dentils. Below is a 4-bay arcade on paired Romanesque columns to stilted arches, on pedestals with a pierced balustrade between; these are above a doorway, with paired glazed doors with segmental top and lintel, flanked by wide openings with moulded arches, that to the right giving to a staircase, and to left with the bottom section blocked with masonry to plinth height. Various bandings and mouldings, a plinth in rock-faced masonry, and flat piers flanking the central section dying to the lowest stages. A set of stone steps rises from the right-hand opening to a central narthex landing, joined by a straight flight rising from the left return. The right flank has a blind clerestorey with dentilled eaves, above aisle walls in coursed and squared stone with brick dressings. At top level are 16 plain flush arched lights, mainly in triplets, but paired at the end bays, above 6 arched lights to a flush sill band with brick arches and jambs. At the ground floor, which is partly concealed by extensions, are various lights with segmental heads. The left flank, in Mitchell Street, is in similar rhythms, but with richer detailing; the top lights are in roll-mould arches with intermediate columns, set to a deep sill and dentil band, above lights with a flush sill band, and at the lowest level six 2-light openings with decorative stone tympana set back under segmental flush heads, on a heavy roll-mould above the

plinth. At the right-hand end an arched opening gives to the narthex steps. The E wall has a plate tracery wheel window in squared rubble, with brick dressings. There are 2 metal ventilators to the ridge. INTERIOR: nave in 4-and-a-half bays, with dark stained arch-braced trusses with one purlin, and arch-braced supports to a deep purlin beam over the arcades; the aisle roofs have cross-bracing to all panels, the roof is close-boarded. Arch braces to aisles, carried on posts to corbels in the plastered walls. The arcade piers are slender cast-iron shafts with Ionic caps at gallery level and Corinthian to the arcade. At the E end, the sanctuary area, which was formerly also with a gallery, has been modified, with side partitions brought in to frame the recess with segmental compartmental ceiling. Aisle windows are in simple square embrasures to triple lights. The gallery fronts have 3 horizontal moulded and fielded panels to each bay, with cornice, and carried on a moulded beam, with canted sides to the W. A lobby has been inserted at the W end, its partition just behind the gallery columns, and there is a wooden stair to the galleries each side. The floors are wooden, with plain pews, and a match-boarded dado. The E window is in responds and with a deep sill above a moulded cornice, a curtain hangs behind the altar. A stair behind the altar leads to to the extensive undercroft. The plain undercroft has various cast-iron column supports to a flat ceiling. The organ is free-standing in the W gallery, with a wide plain arched opening to the space above the narthex. To the right is a bold quadrant pulpit with blind arcading, and a similar reading desk. The church makes a striking axial termination to St Edmund Street, looking E, with its contrasting red brick and white stone, vigorous form, and ornate detailing. There seem to have been very few alterations to the fabric.

Listing NGR: SY6798178755

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467726

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