Hoylake Chapel

Hoylake Chapel is a United Reform (formerly Congregational) Church built between 1905 and 1906, designed by Douglas & Minshull. The building was declared redundant in 1991. It is constructed of soft red brick laid in an English garden bond, with a sandstone plinth and dressings, and a Westmoreland slate roof. The interior is entirely clad in sandstone ashlar.

The church comprises a five-bay nave with aisles, entrances on the northwest and southwest (the latter accessed through a diagonally-set porch), transepts, and a polygonal apse to the east. A second north entrance connects to a church hall dating from 1884, built in a simple lancet style. A fleche over the crossing was not replaced after war damage.

The west front is broad, flanked by crocketted pinnacles. It features buttresses with several set-offs, a six-light window with two principal mullions and free-Perpendicular tracery; the hood and sill moulds extend to enclose a wide band of sandstone and three shallow niches on either side. A porch has a pronounced coped parapet, stepped above a moulded arched doorway. The side elevations, to the nave and aisles, also feature buttresses with set-offs and gables, battered to the aisles, with three-light clerestory windows and simple lancets to the aisles featuring shaped heads. The south side includes an organ chamber and staggered transept, the former with an elaborate datestone from 1905, flanked by windows. A large south window is similar to the east window; two- and three-light windows are present in the apse.

Inside, the west arches of the arcades are lower to mark entrances, and the aisles are narrow. Moulded arches die into piers, and deeply recessed clerestory windows are present. Aisle windows have jambs between corbelled details, and the ceiling features a hammer-beam roof. Full-height transept arches are also present. The woodwork is by James Merritt, including simple benches with carved ends, a pulpit, an irregular polygon with recessed facets under open tracery and with elaborate stair, and a dado and stalls at the east end. A stone font features a curved bowl with buttresses at the cardinal points. The east end has a black and white marble floor.

Three apse windows by H Gustave Hiller (1922) depict scenes of the Nativity, the Empty Towns, and the Ascension, with groups of angels above (Jerusalem is depicted in the centre light). Particularly noteworthy are the pulpit, font, and these windows. This is a well-proportioned church of its date and an important late work by the architect John Douglas.