Former Primitive Methodist Chapel, Balby

Former Primitive Methodist Chapel, Balby

This Primitive Methodist Chapel was built between 1867 and 1868 to designs by architect W Watson. The building is constructed of red brick with polychromatic decoration in white brick, blue brick and white stone, with a slate roof.

The chapel occupies a rectangular footprint on a sloping corner site, with a former basement schoolroom beneath. The north-west gable fronts Balby Road to the south-east, while the north-east elevation faces Carr Hill.

The main gable elevation is designed in an exuberant and eclectic High Victorian style. The symmetrical facade comprises three central bays breaking forward, flanked on each side by a narrow recessed bay. The brickwork is richly ornamented, rising from a high, chamfered plinth. The central gable is topped with stone coping and rendered machicolations incorporating a small, square relief-carved stone panel at each end, surmounted by three ornamental iron finials—one at the apex and one at each corner.

The recessed outer bays feature stone coping and full-height recessed panels with brick machicolations and stone brackets. Within the three central bays, a door is set to each side of a central ground-floor panel of three blind, roll-moulded, round-headed arches with stone sills, an inset line of white bricks, and a row of blue bricks above the arch heads. The outer bays each contain a similar single blind, round-headed arch at ground-floor level. The two doorways are approached by short flights of three stone steps with iron handrails to the inside edges. The doors are moulded doubles doors with heavy white stone surrounds featuring pilasters with central, square, foliate panels and deeply carved foliate capitals. The semi-circular arches above bear foliate-carved tympanum panels and thick roll-moulding surmounted by a central leaf. Above each door is a large stone roundel with a central relief panel of flowers and leaves set within a blue brick frame.

The central bay contains a tripartite window of three roll-moulded, round-headed windows beneath a single relieving arch with a stone sill band and relief-carved impost band. The window mullions incorporate square relief-carved stone panels and deeply carved foliate capitals. A simple timber Latin cross is now affixed to the window mullions in front of the central window. The stone spandrels above are richly carved, and the relieving arch features alternating voussoirs of red brick and carved stone with a moulded stone hood. The outer bays each have a single, roll-moulded, round-headed window with a stone sill band, carved stone impost blocks, alternating red and white brick voussoirs, and a moulded stone hood. All windows have timber frames with decorative multi-pane tracery.

At the gable apex is a diamond-shaped panel bearing relief lettering that reads PRIMITIVE / METHODIST / CHAPEL / 1868.

The north-east side elevation rises to two storeys across five bays. A decorative eaves band with slightly-projecting panels of white brick runs along the top. The upper chapel level contains five round-headed windows with stone sills, a rendered sill band, a stone impost band, and voussoirs of alternating red and white bricks with a hood band of white bricks. These windows have timber frames with decorative multi-pane tracery. At the lower schoolroom level, the left three bays feature a narrow door flanked by two segmental-arched windows. The four-panelled door has a deep rectangular overlight and a segmental-arched head of red and white brick voussoirs. The windows beside it have stone sills and similar segmental heads of red and white brick voussoirs.

The south-east gable is of red brick with an eaves band of white brick and a slightly projecting central chimney stack.

The interior, as recorded in photographs from 2012, presented a simple interior with a plain decorative scheme. Photographs from sales particulars in September 2019 show that fixtures have since been largely stripped out, including the raked and aisled bench seating, pulpit, and elders' seating. The roof structure comprises queen-posts with semi-circular struts between them and curved brackets to the tie-beams, beneath a flat panelled ceiling above the collar ties.