St Mark's Church Hall

Former Sunday school and church hall, constructed in 1875 to designs by William Watkins (1832-1926), converted to a shop during the early 1970s.

MATERIALS: the building is of red and dark brown brick with stone dressings, timber details and a roof covering of slate.

PLAN: the building is of one to two storeys on an irregular, L-shaped plan. The overall form comprises a rectangular hall orientated north-south with a steeply-pitched roof, from which a lower, canted cross wing projects to the west under a hipped roof. The return angles between the canted projection and hall are partially built-in, and a brick chimney stack rises between the canted projection and the main hall.

EXTERIOR: The building is designed in a High Victorian Gothic Revival style. The south gable contains a stone window with two transoms running through five lancets, and three cusped lights above, with a stone hood mould. Above this is a stone plaque bearing the letters: HÆC ÆDES STRUCTA EST IN MEMORIAM IOANNIS WOULD LEE A D MDCCCLXXV. Directly above this are three unglazed slit openings. The gable’s western edge is chamfered and rises to a moulded stone kneeler. The gable is formed of tumbled-in brickwork, rising to a stone finial. The north gable end wall is, by contrast, plainly finished with an oculus window with timber or metal glazing. A tall, gabled dormer with a finial, containing a timber, three-light mullion window breaks through the eaves perpendicular to the north gable end wall. Beneath this window, the northern return angle between the canted projection and the hall is infilled with a single-storey, flat-roofed element, partially rebuilt in mid- to late C20 brickwork.

The western face of the canted projection contains a gabled dormer breaking through the eaves, of a similar design to the larger dormer to the main hall, containing a two-light mullion window. The south-west face of the canted projection contains a four-light fixed window with a stone lintel and sill.

In the southern return angle between the canted projection and hall is a polygonal porch with a chamfered doorway flanked by small, single-light windows, with a carved stone crest of a bishop’s mitre above. The porch rises into a short, round tower with a conical roof topped with a square, timber belfry with a spirelet and finial.

Listing NGR: SK9735870861