Central Methodist Church And Attached Ancillary Buildings

YORK

SE6051NE ST SAVIOURGATE 1112-1/17/993 (North side) 01/07/68 Central Methodist Church and attached ancillary buildings (Formerly Listed as: ST SAVIOURGATE Centenary Methodist Church)

GV II*

Wesleyan Methodist chapel; schoolrooms and ancillary accommodation at rear. 1840; ancillary buildings 1872 and 1895. Chapel by James Simpson of Leeds. MATERIALS: chapel front of cream brick in Flemish bond with sandstone ashlar portico; rear and returns of orange-grey mottled brick in English garden-wall bond. Hipped slate roof with brick stack. Wrought-iron overthrow and lamp bracket. EXTERIOR: basement and 2 storeys; 5-bay pedimented front, articulated 1:3:1 by pilasters behind tetrastyle giant Ionic portico. Entablature to pediment returns on each side across full width of front. Basement window to left is 4-pane sash, to right 16-pane sash. Flights of steps beneath portico lead to three pairs of folding sunk panelled doors with flat arches of gauged brick. Flanking windows are bordered lights in raised architraves over sill bands: upper storey windows are similar. Rear: 2-storey 5-bay apse. Basement windows originally 16-pane sashes with flat arches, some with semicircular grilles. Ground and first floor windows are round-headed bordered lights with brick arches and stone sills, those on first floor taller. Left and right returns repeat fenestration of rear. Rear bay of right return filled by ashlar doorcase with plain jambs, shouldered lintel and dentilled cornice on moulded consoles, beneath parapet with moulded coping: panelled double doors are approached by steps. INTERIOR: 2 staircases to gallery have open strings, slender turned balusters, shaped treadends and serpentine handrail wreathed around turned newel on shaped curtail steps. Oval gallery on cast-iron Corinthian columns has sunk-panelled front projecting on modillions. Numbered panelled box pews on ground floor and in gallery retain original fittings. Gallery windows in round-arched architraves have coloured glass borders incorporating palmette and rinceaux motifs. Modillioned ceiling cornice is enriched with egg-and-dart mouldings over plaster frieze of rinceaux and rosettes: ceiling is coffered with rosette mouldings in alternate panels. Massive matching pulpit and organ case. Wall monuments: white marble sarcophagus to Joseph Agar, d.1847, signed Waudby; pedimented tabernacle supported by sculpted figures to Rev. David Hill, d.1896, by Skelton of York.

(City of York: RCHME: The Central Area: HMSO: 1981-: 52).

Listing NGR: SE6054051896