Wesleyan Methodist Church

CHESTER CITY (EM)

SJ4066 ST JOHN STREET 1932-1/6/248 (West side) Wesleyan Methodist Church

II

Church. 1811. By Thomas Harrison and William Cole II of Chester. Extended, externally drastically, 1906 by PH and WT Lockwood. Earlier part built of brown brick, the later part in Ruabon red brick; grey slate roofs. PLAN/EXTERIOR: the face to St John Street, 1906, is symmetrical in indeterminate style with projecting 2-storey corner pavilions, formerly with entrances, now display windows, in front of the gabled main front with large 9-light round-arched window with quasi-panel tracery. A plaque above the window is inscribed erected 1811 : restored 1906. Stepped and rounded gable with cartouche and finial. The right side of the original chapel has 3 tall leaded windows with cambered gauged-brick heads to the aisle and 3 semicircular windows with radial-bar glazing to the gallery. The left side is similar, but with lower part of front bay concealed by the extension. The rear, now the liturgical east end, was reordered in 1906; a rainwater pipe and head at corner of nave is dated 1811 on a butterfly bracket. INTERIOR: Ionic arcades and side galleries in the unaltered parts and a round classical arch to the chancel. HISTORICAL NOTE: originally the chapel was correctly oriented, entered from the west, facing the City Walls, and with an apsidal east end to St John Street. Thomas Harrison prepared only a plan, fee 20 pounds. This was an insufficient basis for builders' estimates. William Cole II, whose son was to be Harrison's pupil, completed the working drawings and prepared specifications, fee 85 pounds. Cole evidently also acted as a contractor for masonry, carpentry and joinery, approximately half the cost of the building. The 1906 extensions and alterations included reorienting the church. The apse was demolished, the new entrance front to St John Street built and the chancel added, or reordered from the previous porch, to replace the original entrance. The later C20 wing left of the St John Street front is not included in this item. (Simpson F: Notes on Chester Churches and Chapels: 1920-1930).

Listing NGR: SJ4075966231