Former Wesleyan Reform Chapel and Sunday School

Former Wesleyan Reform Methodist Chapel and Sunday School

This former Methodist chapel was designed by John Green Junior and built in two phases: the chapel itself between 1856 and 1857, and the Sunday School between 1857 and 1858. The building has undergone alterations in the 20th and 21st centuries and now serves as a theatre, having previously been used as part of the Borough Treasurer's Department Offices.

The chapel is constructed in sandstone ashlar and rubble stone with a red brick Sunday School block attached to the rear. The roofs are pitched Welsh slate, with wooden sash windows throughout.

The building is rectangular in plan, aligned south-west to north-east, with a narrow flat-roofed link block connecting the chapel to a full-width rectangular Sunday School block at the rear.

The gabled front elevation facing south-west is symmetrical and built in dressed stone. It has two storeys and three bays, featuring three full-height recessed chamfered arched panels beneath a gabled string band and corniced coped gable with blocks at its feet and a banded ashlar chimney at the apex. The central ground-floor panel contains a square-headed tripartite sash with bracketed sill and raised keyed surround. The narrower recessed panels on either side hold similar double-arched doorways with keystones, moulded imposts and double doors beneath stained glass toplights and fanlights. The fanlight displays the Old Tynemouth Borough coat of arms flanked by the pitman and seaman bearers, with the Latin motto 'messis ab altis' and the date 1849 beneath. The toplight has 'Borough Treasurers Office' painted across its central stained glass panel. The first-floor level of each recessed panel has round-arched windows flanking a central round-arched tripartite window. All upper windows have bracketed sills, raised keyed surrounds, and margin-glazed horned sash windows.

The left return elevation on the north-west side has six bays of the original chapel, the link block, and the gable wall of the Sunday School. Two bays are obscured by the adjacent number 85 Howard Street. The visible five bays of the original 1856–1857 chapel are built in rubble stone with quoins. Each floor has three windows: the ground-floor windows are square-headed with stone sills and eight-over-eight horned sashes, while the upper windows are round-headed with voussoirs and margin-glazed horned sashes. To the left, the chapel extends in red brick laid in common bond with one infilled upper window (a former door) and two infilled mid-storey windows. The full elevation has been raised by two or three red brick courses across both building phases. The single-storey link block abuts the chapel (now functioning as a stage door exit as of 2022), with the rendered gable wall of the Sunday School to its left, featuring an early-20th-century panelled door with a decorated mid rail on the left-hand side.

The right return elevation on the south-east is similarly constructed in rubble stone with red brick at the right-hand corner. The lower ground floor is concealed behind an extension of the neighbouring building but retains a number of blocked ground-floor windows at varying heights. Four upper round-headed windows are visible: the left three have stone voussoirs, and the right has a double rowlock brick arch. One window is blocked but retains its sash internally. The single-storey link block is concealed behind the adjacent extension, and the Sunday School gable wall faces into a covered passageway. A matching early-20th-century door is present on the left return.

The rear chapel elevation is built in red brick with four bays. The ground floor is obscured by the link block. The upper floor has two inner square-headed windows flanked by round-headed outer windows, all now infilled with red brick.

The Sunday School block is constructed in red brick with a single-storey, five-bay elevation facing Norfolk Street. It has a cement plinth and five tall round-arched windows with stone keystones and sills, fitted with six-over-four horned arched sashes and a moulded stone eaves band. To the left on the south-east side is a covered single-storey external passageway with an early-20th-century door matching those on the left return.

The interior has been converted for theatre use. The former entrance vestibule is accessed from the two main entrance doors on Howard Street, now serving as theatre exit doors (as of 2022). Early-20th-century vestibule doors with moulded architraves and six-panel doors open into the chapel, now the auditorium, with a 21st-century metal staircase providing access to the theatre control room and two end doors serving an early-21st-century L-shaped balcony.

The auditorium retains a mid-19th-century central decorated ventilation grill with moulded and foliated raised roundel. Late-19th-century wooden bracketed and moulded cornices are attached to the return walls to form sills to the upper windows. Two 21st-century public auditorium doors on the ground floor and one balcony door on the first floor are cut through the right return wall to the foyer in the adjacent building. Three further staff and performers' doors are situated to the rear behind the stage, entering the stage door corridor in the link block with an exit to Norfolk Street Car Park. A first-floor balcony door leads to the emergency roof exit and stair.

The stage door corridor in the link block contains stairs and doorways into the Sunday School, which now has an inserted floor. The ground floor houses a scene dock and dressing rooms with access to the covered passageway, and the first floor contains a plant room.