Central Methodist Church

Central Methodist Church

This Methodist church was built in 1905 and was originally known as Portland Place Memorial Church. It was designed by the architects Howdill and Sons.

The building is constructed of red brick with cream-coloured stone, possibly Lincolnshire limestone, ashlar dressings. The roofs are slate and lead.

The building stands on a rectangular plan with two adjoining ranges. The church forms the eastern range, fronting the High Street, while the Sunday school and meeting rooms form the western range, which has no formal frontage. The church is of two storeys under a pitched roof sloping to the north and south, with a lead-roofed louvre breaking through the ridge.

The principal east elevation is designed in a richly detailed Edwardian Baroque style with two storeys and taller towers flanking the central portion. The ground floor is of channelled ashlar limestone, while the first floor and towers are primarily of red brick with extensive ashlar dressings and channelled ashlar quoins. The recessed central section has three round-arched doorways with double keystones and mid-20th century doors and glazing. In the spandrels are two draped oval cartouches, the southern one engraved with the words: PORTLAND PLACE MEMORIAL 1906. On the first floor are three windows on a sill band, flanked by Ionic columns. The larger central window is flanked by two pairs of columns and has voussoirs, dated 1905, breaking into the pediment above. Within the tympanum of the pediment is a lunette window within a round-arched opening with ashlar and gauged brickwork voussoirs. To either side of the central window is a smaller window within an ashlar surround with a large keystone and shaped lintel.

To the south of the central element is a square bell tower arranged in three stages, topped with an octagonal turret with a spherical lead dome and finial. There is a doorway on the ground floor with a large keystone and voussoirs in the channelled ashlar, and a single window on the south return. On the east and south faces of the first floor is a round-arched window within a moulded ashlar surround with a keystone, and two narrow plain windows. On all four elevations, at the top of the second stage of the tower is a bow-fronted balcony with a stone balustrade. Above this, the turret has four louvred openings with pediments and keystones, and four volute supports flanked by Ionic columns.

To the north of the central element is a smaller square tower also arranged in three stages and with similar fenestration to the bell tower, but topped with a ramped, coped parapet with octagonal finials on the pedestals. The tower is topped with a battered square lead turret with a louvred opening on each side, topped with a square lead dome.

The north and south returns of the building have five metal-framed windows on each floor, of alternating four-and eight-light designs, containing stained glass. A string course runs across each elevation at first-floor sill height. To the rear (west) is a cross wing containing the Sunday school, theatre and meeting rooms, with shaped, coped gables to the north and south elevations. The north elevation contains two large round-arched windows on the first floor and irregular fenestration on the ground floor. The south elevation has four nine-light casement windows on the ground floor and two round-arched windows on the first floor. The westernmost bay of the range is lower, at one and a half storeys, with a monopitch roof and a series of windows at ground and first floor, all but one of which are blocked in. The west and south elevations of the rear range carry a series of brick buttresses.

The entrance lobby was remodelled and refitted during the mid-20th century. The chapel itself has an elliptical arched and boarded ceiling and panelled ribs, with patterned stained-glass windows. The gallery is panelled and arranged in a horseshoe shape, supported on round cast iron columns. The upper tier has Ionic columns and elliptical arches with keystones. At the west end of the ground floor is a wooden pulpit, dais and rail, and above this, behind the choir gallery, a wooden screen, all installed in 1968. On either side of the 1960s interventions on each floor are a pair of single doors linking to the Sunday school and meeting rooms beyond. The fittings include the original timber benches with moulded ends. Adjoining the chapel to the west, the Sunday school wing has an entrance lobby and stairwell with a cross beam carried on Ionic columns and pilasters. There are wooden pedestals flanked by short wooden balustrades, and a concrete cantilevered open well staircase with a cast iron balustrade. The theatre on the first floor has a cross beam ceiling with a blind clerestory on wooden posts.