Details
This List entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 26/04/2019
CHARLOTTE STREET (south side)
Elim Pentecostal Church
15/02/2007
GV
II*
Church. Dated 1854. By HE and AS Goodridge.
MATERIALS: limestone ashlar, with leaded and Welsh slate roofs.
PLAN: the church is ingeniously planned on a tapering site, with an outwardly centrally planned chapel actually comprising a tapering worship space, narrowing towards the pulpit with a vestry behind. There is a screen front to the street, with a centrally planned decagonal church within.
STYLE: Lombardic/Romanesque style.
EXTERIOR: the façade and secondary elevations of the church are of two storeys, with a screen front to street, incorporating a central gabled section flanked by short wings ending in towers carried up for further storey. The ground floor has blind Romanesque arcade of five bays, set on a plinth incorporating five wrought-iron lattice-work vents, flanked by an additional bay and then by a Lombardic porch projecting forward below gable at each end of facade. The upper storey has large central arched recess flanked by columns in-antis (recessed) with a rope order. This device frames a rose window (repeated opposite on the south side) of twelve-lights, with inscriptions in corners, `PERCY CHAPEL' and date `MDCCCLIV'. Strip pilasters frame and articulate the upper storey, with a corbel table at eaves level. The rest of the walling blank, except for a single round headed window over either porch lighting the stair to the galleries.
The towers have moulded stringcourses at both sill and springing level for windows, paired within arched recesses infilled with delicate masonry open work divided by colonettes with composite capitals. The towers are finished with a heavy projecting cornice and pyramidal slate roofs. Behind the central gable rises the decagonal drum over the space within, forming the clerestory for the church. Each face has a four-light arcaded window, with a corbel table and deep eaves overhang going round building above, all under a pyramidal slate roof. The hidden flat roofs linking facades and the clerestory drum are covered in lead. The other elevations are hardly visible, though that to the rear are of limestone ashlar with a rose window lighting the gallery to the south and a large ashlar masonry stack venting the boiler to the rear.
The INTERIOR is formed by a polygonal space on the ground floor with a gallery above surmounted by the decagonal clerestory carried on ten slender Purbeck marble columns with delicate composite capitals, all linked with semicircular arches with basket-work carving to the soffits. The spandrels above retain their decorative paintwork, as do the walls above the timber dado panelling behind. The floor of the gallery is raked, though some of the pews have been removed. The mid C19 roof structure survives complete above. The gallery is reached by two sets of stairs located in the towers; these are of masonry with wrought-iron balustrades. Below, the gallery is carried on ten iron columns carrying massive supporting beams on which rest a series of shaped and cantilevered timber joists supporting the floor of the gallery. The gallery rail has a cornice with dentils and a pediment over the clock, set in the eastern face of the rail, opposite the raised integral pulpit, so located as to serve those below and those above in the gallery. A C20 suspended ceiling set on the top of the gallery rail was present when surveyed, but was removed in 2018. Below the main hall there is a substantial basement taking advantage of the sloping topography of the site; the floor above is carried on a system of iron and stone columns and vaults. Here was installed the boiler and early air handling system designed and installed by Hadens of Trowbridge. The boiler has been removed, though the ancillary system has been ingeniously modified to suit modern environmental management.
HISTORY: One of the most flamboyant Non-Conformist chapels of its day, the Percy Chapel was founded by the Congregationalist secessionists from Argyle Chapel, Bath, after the appointment of the Rev. W.H Dyer to succeed the retiring incumbent, the Rev. Jay, who then took a considerable number of affluent members of his congregation with him, leading to the construction of this chapel on the then western fringes of the city. The name of the chapel was taken from Jay's residence in Percy Place. The First Pastor was the Rev. Richard Brindley, and the Chapel opened 13th December 1854. It had a capacity of 1000. A prominent cupola-topped ventilator on top of the roof has been removed since 1945. The present congregation, the Elim Pentecostal Church, was founded in Monaghan, Ireland in 1915, has been based here since 1955.
SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE
The Elim Pentecostal Church, formerly the Percy Chapel, built in 1854 to the designs of H.E and A.S Goodridge, architects, is of outstanding architectural and historic interest on account of its confident architectural articulation of the distinctive Lombardic Romanesque style adopted for its design, the creative planning employed to accommodate such a building on a difficult site, and the innovative use of air handling technology utilised to heat the large volume of the church. Built to the designs of Henry Goodridge, it compares well with his best work in Bath such as the Beckford Tower (listed Grade I) and Bathwick Grange (listed Grade II*). The associations with Reverend William Jay, one of the most influential preachers of his day, adds additional interest. It also forms part of an important group of listed buildings on the western approaches to the historic city, within both the City Centre Conservation Area and the Bath World Heritage Site.
SOURCES:
J. Orbach, Card Index of Bath Architects and Streets, 1978
The Builder (1855), 75 (illus.)
N. Jackson, Nineteenth Century Bath - Architects and Architecture: Bath, 1991, 217
H. Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects. 1600-1840: London: 1978, 352
C. Stell, `An Inventory of Non-Conformist Chapels and Meeting-Houses in South-West England' RCHME 1991, 164
C. Stell, South-West England: Norwich: 1994, SOM 15
M. Forsythe, Pevsner Architectural Guides (Bath), Yale University Press, 2003
Listing NGR: ST7463764983
