Westgate Primitive Methodist Chapel

Westgate Primitive Methodist Chapel

This Primitive Methodist chapel with attached schoolroom stands in Stanhope and was constructed in 1871 by architects George Race Junior and Atkinson. The design incorporated surviving parts of an earlier 19th-century chapel. The buildings are constructed of coursed and squared sandstone with ashlar plinth, quoins, and dressings. The roofs are Welsh slate with end chimneys.

The chapel is positioned parallel to the main road through the village and follows a side entry plan, with the pulpit facing west and the main entrance positioned to the south-east. An attached school building of matching materials stands to the east.

The south elevation, facing the main road, displays five bays and two storeys beneath a pitched Welsh slate roof. A chamfered plinth and cornices mark the first floor and eaves. The eastern bay contains original paired doorways, whilst the western bay has a single doorway; all three have keyed round arches on pilasters and contain 5-panelled doors with fanlights. Ground floor windows are square-headed with raised plain surrounds and aprons. First floor windows are round-headed in style matching the doors, also with aprons. Above the lower windows runs a series of eroded inscribed panels. The windows retain original glazing with coloured margin lights. The contemporary schoolhouse adjoins the chapel to the east, set slightly back, comprising three bays and two storeys. Its windows follow similar detailing to the chapel but without aprons, and an identical round-arched doorway appears in the easternmost bay. The rear elevation is plain, with round-arched windows above and square-headed windows below. The rear of the schoolroom shows evidence of blocked windows and a stone external stair.

Access to the chapel interior is gained through a 4-panelled door from a full-width narrow entrance lobby at the east end. This lobby contains two stairs with moulded newels and turned balusters rising to gallery level. Ground floor walls are painted plaster above a boarded dado. A double row of pitch pine pews runs down the centre, with single rows flanking an aisle; the pews have shaped end panels painted with numbers. Slim, modified Corinthian cast-iron columns support a full gallery on all sides, which also retains similar seating. The columns are decorated to resemble marble, with stencilling and gilded capitals. They rise through the gallery to form upper arcades at balcony level. Communion rails are carried on patterned cast-iron uprights enclosing a centrally placed dais with a panelled front featuring quatrefoil patterned cast ironwork and steps to one side. The organ, not original, occupies the gallery level above the pulpit in the area formerly used by the band. Curving doors with brass handles on either side of the pulpit give access to a pair of small vestries with a store between them. The vestries are panelled to half height with wooden benches; one has a fireplace and the other an external door. Access to the gallery is via panelled doors with twisted brass handles. The gallery has a cast-iron projecting balustrade matching the dais front. At the western end of the gallery, the front row has a rail supported on short brass columns, probably indicating choir seating. The coved ceiling features large panels with stucco leaf decoration in the corners, cornicing, and elaborate ceiling ventilator roundels.

The attached schoolroom has matchboard panelling around the walls with a line of coat hooks on the east wall. An original wooden stair rises in the south-west corner to the first floor schoolroom, now a private apartment. A small kitchen is situated off the north-west corner of the schoolroom.

The south wall bears a tablet to George Race and Nathan Race. A memorial tablet fixed to the cast-iron gallery front commemorates those who fell in the Great War. A roll of honour appears on the north wall of the schoolroom.

Westgate has a long history of Primitive Methodist worship and was a principal centre for Primitive Methodism in Weardale. The site hosted an early camp meeting in 1823, with the field still bearing the name 'Camp Meeting Allotment'. The first chapel was built at the west end of the village in 1824. The present chapel, known as West End Chapel, was built in 1871 to accommodate 500 people at a cost of £1,300. The schoolroom attached to the east end incorporates the rear and west walls of the earlier 19th-century chapel; the external stair against the rear wall suggests this may have been a first-floor chapel.

The chapel and schoolroom are exceptional for their intactness. Both exterior and interior have survived with very little alteration from the 19th century. A full complement of pews remains in both gallery and ground floor, with original windows throughout. The interior displays high quality artistic merit in its metal and plaster decorative detailing, including the cast-iron columns with marble-effect decoration, the patterned communion rail uprights, and the stucco and cornicing of the coved ceiling. The attached day school is itself of special interest. These factors combine to produce a chapel of more than special interest in a national context.