Oxford Place Church With Gates, Gate Piers, Railings And Boundary Wall To South

This is a red brick Methodist church with attached gates, gate piers, railings, and a boundary wall to the south, built in 1835. It was remodelled between 1896 and 1903 by William H Thorp in partnership with George F Danby, and altered again around 1980 to create church, meeting room, and office spaces. The church sits on a sloping corner site and is two storeys high with a basement and attics. It is constructed in a Renaissance Revival style, characterized by banded rustication.

The main facade features a wide central entrance flanked by attached Ionic columns and topped with an open pediment. Smaller entrances are located in bays one and five, with keyed architraves and round windows above. The first floor has attached Ionic columns dividing the central three bays, and round-arched windows in bays one and five. The building has an entablature, a modillion cornice, and a central circular attic window set within a pedimented gable bearing the dates 1835 and 1898, with ramped flanking walls and obelisk finials. The outer bays are distinguished by scrolled ball finials above the parapet and stone cupolas. The rear facade has two storeys and five windows, built with a 1:3 English bond brick pattern on a stone plinth. The left return shows a seven-bay Thorp remodelling, including a basement storey with flat-arched windows, pilasters banded in brick, segmental arched ground-floor windows, and round arched windows above. Pediments crown bays three and five, and cupolas are present on the outer bays. The right return reveals the original church’s side wall with round-headed windows.

The interior was heavily remodelled around 1980, featuring partitioning and new flooring. Glazing from 1898 incorporates a yellow and grey scrolled design in the margin lights on the south side.

The main facade connects via a curved wall to Oxford Chambers. The boundary wall to the south has a pair of gate piers to Oxford Place, with a gate and railing, and a second pair of piers to the rear, with double-leaf gates and railings. The front gate piers, dating to around 1900, are approximately 1.5 meters high, square in section, and feature a deep cornice and ball finials supported by scrolled brackets. The gate has three baluster-shaped bars flanked by scrolled panels above a scrolled lock-bar. A short, curved wall connects the church to the gate piers, constructed of three courses of ashlar with rounded coping and a partial railing featuring a standard with an urn finial and bars with spearhead finials. The rear gate piers are square-sectioned with flat caps; the gates are double-leafed with spearhead finials, and the railings match those at the front. A low retaining wall with flat coping encloses the church ground on the south side.