Union Street Baptist Church And Attached Boundary Wall And Railings

Union Street Baptist Church and attached boundary wall and railings

Baptist church with attached vestry, meeting rooms and offices, boundary wall and railing, built in 1884 to designs by J Wallis-Chapman. The building is constructed in red brick with ashlar dressings and plain tile roofs, executed in an eclectic style with predominantly Gothic elements.

The main church forms a rectangular structure with stair turrets and a spire at the west end. A vestry and meeting room form a T-plan cross range at the east end. The church comprises 5 bays with a plinth, buttresses, sill band, rebated brick eaves, coped gables and crested ridge tiles.

The west gable features a rebated pointed-arched doorway with hoodmould, containing 20th-century panelled double doors with a mullioned overlight. These are flanked by single plain lancets. Above is a round window with Decorated tracery and hoodmould. To the south stands a three-stage stair turret topped with a timber-framed octagonal lantern. The ground floor of this turret has a door in a round-arched recess, flanked to the left by a single lancet. The upper stage has three lancets under a flat head. The upper stage and lantern feature patterned timber framing with rendered infill panels. The upper stage has a half-hipped roof, a single square window to the west, and a two-light window to the south. The lantern contains wooden-framed cross-windows in its upper stage and an octagonal pyramidal roof with a tall finial. To the north is a canted two-stage stair turret. To the west, a porch with a chamfered doorway and mullioned overlight sits beneath a hipped stone roof, with a single lancet to its right. The upper stage of the porch has continuous glazing with leaded lights under a hipped roof.

The north and south sides each contain two lancets in every bay, above which sits a flat-headed three-light window. At the north-east end is a projecting square stair turret with a pointed-arched doorway and double doors set in a chamfered four-centred arched recess. Above this is a traceried cross-mullioned window of three lights. Beyond lies the canted end bay of the cross range, featuring six-light windows on each floor, re-glazed in the late 20th century.

The cross range comprises 3 bays with segment-headed three-light windows in each bay on each floor; those on the upper floors have narrower sidelights. The south gable contains a central external gable stack flanked by two ground-floor windows and single windows above, the latter being glazing bar sashes. The gabled side bays have two windows on each floor, those above being flat-headed.

Interior: The church features an all-round wooden gallery with a pierced front, supported on slender cast-iron columns. An arch-braced hammer beam roof with a sham clerestorey, matchboard ceiling and numerous tie rods spans the space. The floor slopes to the front, where a raised platform covers a cruciform tiled baptistry. A traceried pine pulpit flanks this space, beside which stand half-glazed doors. Above, on the gallery, is a panelled organ case with show pipes. At the rear, the south lancets are flanked by pairs of half-glazed doors, with similar single doors on the gallery. All church windows contain patterned stained glass. The tiled entrance vestibule has open-well stone staircases with double iron stick balusters and ramped handrails.

The cross range contains a similar staircase. The ground floor holds a large meeting room with glazed screens and a folding partition. The first floor contains a hall with a stage and flanking dressing rooms, topped by an arch-braced principal rafter roof. Most rooms retain their original matchboard dadoes and doors.

Outside: A blue brick boundary wall with chamfered ashlar coping and topped with railing runs along the west and north fronts. Square blue brick piers with ashlar caps support double gates at the west entrance. Similar piers in blue brick and red brick, with double gates, mark the north-side entrance. Similar piers also stand beside a wooden gate leading to the rear range.