Methodist Church Including Schoolrooms and Hall

Details

BIDEFORD

SS4526 HIGH STREET 842-1/5/140 (South side) Methodist Church including schoolrooms and hall

GV II

Methodist church. 1912-13. By W Beddoes Rees of Cardiff. Front of rough-faced, grey and brown coursed Welsh stone rubble with dressings of limestone (probably Bath stone). Side and rear walls rendered; dressings of limestone and cream brick. Slate roofs with pierced red crested ridge-tiles. Cream-brick chimneys at rear. Church oblong in plan with galleries on north, east and west sides. Schoolrooms behind, and then the hall, lying at right-angles to the church. Arts and Crafts Gothic style. Front consists of a gabled centrepiece flanked by octagonal buttresses, these rising almost level with the apex of the gable. Lower battlemented wings at either side with steeply-pitched hipped roofs facing sideways. Centre has moulded doorway with pointed arch; double plank doors with ornate iron handles and strap-hinges. Flanking the doorhead a band of limestone panels with pointed, cinquefoiled arches, the second panel from each end glazed. In the upper stage a large, traceried 7-light window with pointed arch; mullions flanking the 3 centre lights are developed into buttresses which cut through the hood-mould and turn into 6-sided shafts; these then rise above the roof-line and are finished with capitals and scroll-buttressed finials. In the centre of the gable is a niche with cusped ogee arch; above it on the point of the gable is a large foliated finial; the octagonal buttresses at either side are banded with limestone, having limestone tops with trefoil-headed panels and ogee caps with ball-finials. The wings have plain, tapered ashlar diagonal buttresses: doorways and doors similar to those in the centre; in the upper stage bands of traceried windows, 5 lights at the front, 3 at the sides. Across the base of the front a series of memorial plaques in blue Forest of Dean stone. Side-walls of church have cream-brick buttresses; 2 rows of 2-light limestone windows with blind trefoiled arches to the lights. Windows at both front and sides have patterned coloured glass. Windows of schoolrooms and hall are mostly plain with cream-brick surrounds. West gable-wall of hall (visible from Providence Row) has doorway and door similar to those at front of church. Stone window above with pointed arch; 2 mullions and patterned coloured glass. Mock timber-framing in apex of gable. Plain bargeboards. INTERIOR: very well-preserved. Galleries on cast-iron columns with moulded caps; bowed, patterned cast-iron fronts. From the side-galleries rise further columns with foliated caps, these supporting 4-centred arches carrying the main roof. Ceiling barrel-vaulted with panelling on both ribs and spaces in between. Apse has piers with moulded imposts from which springs a 4-centred arch, the piers with traceried Gothic panels. Elaborate Gothic and Georgian-style wooden rostrum. Screen to vestibule and several doors half-glazed with patterned coloured glass. Schoolrooms not inspected in detail, but they include 2 staircases with turned balusters. The memorial stones were laid on 26 June 1912 and the church was opened on 2 July 191 (Bideford Weekly Gazette: 1912-1913: 2.7.1912; 10.12.1912).

Listing NGR: SS4516426574

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

375851

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Bideford Weekly Gazette in 10 December, (1912)
Bideford Weekly Gazette in 2 July, (1912)

End of official list entry

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