Chorley Old Road Methodist Church And Hall

The building comprises a Methodist church and hall, located on Chorley Old Road, Bolton. The Sunday school, now used as a general-purpose hall, dates from 1892, while the church itself was built in 1902. The church was designed by JC Topping, and both structures are in a free classical style. The church follows a basilica plan, with a central, domed hall flanked by four axial wings.

The exterior of the church is constructed of brick with stone dressings and a slate roof. The front range has a pedimented design, with a single-story porch situated between two projecting pavilions. A wide Palladian window sits behind the pediment, flanked by coupled Tuscan pilasters. The porch features paired panelled doors and a central lunette window, all with segmentally arched tops and splayed stone voussoirs. The pavilions also have paired panelled doors sheltered by segmentally arched canopies supported by angel corbels. Similar canopies are above lunette windows in the return elevations of the pavilions. An arcaded window runs along the parapet, and small, domed roofs top each pavilion. The side gables are connected to the central domed hall via two-story canted angles with arcaded windows below the eaves. Stepped, segmentally arched windows are positioned at the upper level of each side gable, with a five-window arcade underneath. The central dome was formerly surmounted by a lantern. The rear gable is blank, with a canted apsidal end. A single-story corridor and a subsidiary hall range, added in 1928, connects the church to the main hall. The front of this block is stepped, with a two-bay central section flanked by single bays of shorter height. The central section features paired round arched windows on each floor, a stone cornice, and volutes connecting to the eaves cornice. Segmentally arched doors are found in the outer bays. Further flanking single-story pavilions incorporate windows with stone architraves and doors with scrolled pedimented heads. The main hall beyond comprises five bays, with wide, segmentally arched windows at the upper level, and corridor ranges on each side.

The church interior follows the basilica plan, featuring a central dome with plasterwork ribs and composite pilasters at the angles of the central space. Carved, Renaissance-style choir stalls, dated 1903, flank the pulpit. An organ was added to the rear of the choir stalls in 1935. The church includes stained glass, including a series illustrating the beatitudes (possibly relocated from elsewhere), and a window signed Barrowclough & Saunders of Lancaster, dated 1906.