Robert Hall Memorial Baptist Church

Robert Hall Memorial Baptist Church

This church, including attached church hall and offices, was erected in 1900–1 and designed by Walter Brand of Leicester. The building is constructed of red brick with decorative details in darker red moulded brick or terracotta, and has clay tile roofs with coped gables and kneelers. The architecture combines late Perpendicular or Tudor styling with some Art Nouveau detailing and features numerous windows with hood moulds.

The church occupies a corner site at Narborough Road and Upperton Road. A tall square tower stands on the corner itself, with a door to Narborough Road and a tall arched window above it. The tower has an octagonal top with louvred bell-chamber openings, a battlemented parapet, and a lead-covered spirelet. The main entrance porch projects slightly, featuring stepped buttresses and angle buttresses with a parapet. The entrance door has a moulded terracotta panel above it and two single-light windows to its sides. The main church gable, set back above, contains tall mullion and transom windows with tracery and variously disposed single-light, 3-light, and single-light windows. A moulded terracotta panel appears in the gable apex. To the left projects a 2-storey porch element with a door and 3-light windows. The walls facing the narrow space between the church and church hall are as carefully detailed as the main front, with another entrance at the end.

The church hall extends to the left of the main gable, fronting Narborough Road with a late 20th-century porch and two windows to the left, followed by three basket-arched windows above containing 2:3:2 lights. The left side of the hall has five tall arched windows between narrow buttresses.

The front facing Upperton Road begins with the tower on the left, which has a 2-light window and an arched 2-light window above. Three 4-light mullion and transom windows appear on both storeys. A gabled projection follows with a 3-light window and an arched window above. Next to the right is a canted 2-storey porch projection with a double-leaved door, single-light windows to either side, and a 3-light window with similar single-lights above. To the far right is a canted bay window with a 3-light above. The right-hand end, facing the car park, is simpler in treatment but displays the numerous gables, hipped and half-hipped roofs of the church, hall, and ancillary offices, with various ridge and end stacks.

The interior of the church is notable for its exposed brickwork and a wide barrel-vaulted wooden ceiling supported on curved braces rising from corbels. A horseshoe-shaped gallery, supported on clustered iron piers, curves around the interior. The front of the gallery is partly panelled and partly openwork, displaying Art Nouveau detailing. The curve of the gallery at the west end, with rows of seating above also curving, creates an impressive effect. Almost all the original seating survives in the gallery and throughout the lower area. The east end contains a large organ recess with organ and organ loft detailing in Art Nouveau style, beneath which panelling surrounds the communion table. The central pulpit is absent, but otherwise the church interior remains largely unaltered. All windows retain rectangular leaded quarries with coloured and stained glass decorative roundels, cartouches, and other Art Nouveau style details.

The church hall has a beamed ceiling and balconies at either end; the entrance-end balcony is filled in but retains stained glass in the windows beyond. Ornamental coloured glass also appears in the Minister's office window. Decorative ironwork survives on staircases and some fireplaces. The original white-tiled baptistry, located beneath the organ gallery, features a low double doorway and steps leading to a rear corridor.

Walter Brand (1873–1958) commenced his own practice in 1897 and was established in Bishop Street, Leicester by 1898. He achieved success in a competition for the Wholesale Market in Leicester, and his work included houses in Ipswich and Felixstowe.

The whole ensemble of church, hall, and ancillary offices forms a carefully articulated and remarkably complete composition, with both architecture and fittings displaying good quality details. The group forms a significant landmark on Narborough Road and relates to the former school building opposite, Leicester South Fields College, which was built contemporaneously.