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
