Talbot Lane Methodist Church

Talbot Lane Methodist Church is a church of 1903, designed by Morley and Son of Bradford and built following a fire that destroyed the previous church in 1901. It is constructed of thinly-coursed sandstone with ashlar dressings and a graduated slate roof. The building has a reversed orientation, with entrances in the east gable, featuring a tower with a spire to the left and an apsidal stair projection to the right. The main body of the church comprises a four-bay nave with aisles and transepts, and an apsidal chancel with additional spaces on each side, along with a meeting room located beneath. The architectural style is Gothic Revival, characterised by geometrical tracery.

The tower has three stages, with angle buttresses that incorporate ashlar offsets and gablets. A doorway is set in the east side, topped by a hoodmould. Above this are two tall lancet windows, followed by a blind panel of four cusped openings and embattled band. A tall, two-light window with leaded lights and two orders of colonnettes in the jambs is positioned above, flanked by attached octagonal turrets with crocketed spirelets. The octagonal ashlar spire is topped with string courses below and above lucarnes, and a weathervane. The entrance gable to the right is set back and features an angle buttress rising as an octagonal pinnacle. Paired doorways are set within gabled projections, flanked by pinnacled buttresses and granite colonnettes to the pointed arches. Double doors have overlights with cusped panels, and the gables have Tudor-flower ornament and finials. Two string courses run beneath a five-light window to the main gable. A lower, stepped four-light window is present, along with a projecting sill with carved ends and a shared hoodmould. Gable copings are topped with a finial. A lower, two-storey apsidal projection to the right has a door with a hoodmould, a string course with a buttress rising from it, and small, two-light windows, topped with an ashlar parapet featuring ogee-headed panels. The side walls of the nave have buttresses between bays and string courses below and above paired aisle windows. There are three-light gallery windows with hoodmoulds, and transepts feature two two-light windows beneath four-light gallery windows. The chancel has a four-light altar window flanked by angled single lights. A stair projection is located on the north side.

The interior is well preserved and includes a gallery on three sides of the nave, continuous across the transepts, supported by cast-iron columns. A coved ceiling is present on the side galleries, and bow-string trusses span the nave. The church contains pine pews and a gallery balustrade. Art Nouveau electroliers illuminate the main body of the nave, with matching fittings in the aisles and galleries. Also present are an oak font and pulpit, along with oak chancel fittings with traceried panelling to the rear of the choir stalls. The altar window is by S. Evans of Smethick (1903). The meeting room below the chancel has two Art Nouveau fireplaces. Competition details for the design were reported in the Rotherham Advertiser on May 3rd, 1902, page 5.