Details
PULTENEY ROAD
656-1/42/1323 (West side)
Widcombe Baptist Church, with raised pavement and railings (Formerly Listed as: PULTENEY ROAD Ebenezer Baptist Church)
11/08/72
GV II
Formerly known as: Widcombe Baptist Chapel.
Baptist chapel, with ancillary rooms and extensions. Dated 1820, large extensions 1910, and extensive modification plus extra accommodation c1980.
MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, slate and tile roofs.
PLAN: Original chapel, large square galleried hall, entered from north, with platform and reading desk at south end. Early C20 large unit of offices and rooms built, with access from Pulteney Road, and wing inserted to connect two parts. c1980 interior was reorganised, with entrance from south side, through large single storey extension with foyer and rooms, and platform and reading desk set to north end.
EXTERIOR: North front in two storeys, with three+three windows, all twelve-pane sashes plus margin panes, and with intersecting bars in pointed heads, all windows have raised plat surrounds, continued as full width sill band at first floor, and at ground floor are two pointed doorways, in splayed and raised surrounds, each with pair of panelled doors taken into arch. At this level stone pavement, set above basement walling in heavy squared block, containing two grilled openings and blocked doorway. Small plinth, and at centre and each end shallow square pilasters with sunk panels at two levels, with cusped heads, central pilaster rises from stepped band set between central ground floor windows. Cut into ashlar and crossing central pilaster, in sans serif lettering `EBENEZER BAPTIST CHAPEL¿, and dated 1820. Frieze with lintel, cornice, and crenellated parapet. East end wall in ashlar, has cavetto cornice, west wall has ashlar parapet above squared and coursed walling, single pointed sash centrally at upper level. Later works conceal much of east wall, west wall abuts Nos 5-7, Ebenezer Terrace (qv). Large additions adjacent to Pulteney Road have small corner octagonal bay, with inscription panels recording setting of foundations stones on September 22nd 1910. South front, now used for principal entrance, has single storey extension with hipped roof, in well contrasted late C20 design, below four pointed sashes identical with those to north, at west (right) end two blocked lights. Slight cavetto cornice, with blocking course and parapet. Pyramidal slated roof carries large painted slogans to each face: `WE HAVE REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD on the north side¿.
INTERIOR: Galleries on three sides with panelled fronts and brass rails, with continuous moulded cornice with acorn `dentils', to east and west galleries are on Batty Langley slender cluster columns with bands, in wood, and to south on more sturdy plain shafts. Gallery formerly continued across north end, before re-ordering. Altar and reading desk to north have steps each side to raised platform with arcaded front of late C19 design. Large central ceiling panel, and moulded cornice. South wall has centrally broad pier internally. Main floor carpeted, with chairs, but benches remain to galleries, organ in south-west corner. Stone open well staircase with stick balustrade and polished handrail to right of main block, opening from new foyer space. Raised pavement crossing north end contained by continuous simple iron railing, carried through to Pulteney Road at outer end. Twenty numbered rows of former burial vaults lie beneath the chapel, along with some early C19 monuments.
HISTORY: Built for an Independent congregation which had liturgical services, this handsome Gothick chapel passed to a Baptist church in 1849 when the original proprietors failed. SOURCES: C. Stell, `An Inventory of Non-Conformist Chapels and Meeting-Houses in South-West England¿ (1991), 161.
Listing NGR: ST7550264255
