Nottingham Road Methodist Church

Nottingham Road Methodist Church, Mansfield

Methodist church built in 1913, probably designed by Brewill & Baily. The building is constructed of rock-faced ashlar and yellow brick with ashlar dressings, and has gabled and hipped Westmorland slate roofs. It is designed in the Free Gothic style.

The plan comprises an apsidal east end with vestries and meeting rooms, an aisleless nave with double transepts, and a south-west tower with spire.

The apsidal east end has a central 3-light pointed-arch window with panel tracery and a single window to the south. The meeting room, placed crosswise at the east end, has a hipped north end with ridge stack and a coped south gable with finial and square flanking buttresses with flat caps. A 3-light pointed-arch window with panel tracery lights this gable. The east side has four 3-light leaded casements and a door with sidelights, all with segmental heads. The vestry to the south of the apse features a lintel band, string course and blocking course, with a hipped roof. A large canted bay window contains a 4-light mullioned window flanked by single lights, and to the right is a door with overlight flanked by a small window.

The nave has buttresses on each side and three traceried 2-light pointed-arch windows. The west end displays a heavy shouldered coped gable with a Perpendicular-style 3-light pointed-arch window with mullions in the form of buttresses, set in a deep splayed reveal with hoodmould and stops. Below is a projecting entrance bay with gabled flanking buttresses topped with square pedestals with crenellated moulded copings. A segmental pointed arch encloses panelled double doors and a traceried fanlight, under a concave swept gable. Beyond, on either side, is a single ogee lancet with hoodmould. To the north is a small square tower with a single blind lancet on each side at the top, the corners carried up to form square pinnacles with moulded flat caps. At the north-west corner is a stair enclosure with shouldered coped gable, string course and coped parapet, with two single lancets with hoodmoulds to the west and north. The north gable has a tall single lancet above. The south transept has coped gables and three gabled buttresses topped with square pinnacles, with two 3-light pointed-arch windows with panel tracery. The plainer north transept has similar windows.

The south-west tower is square and three stages high, with gabled diagonal buttresses topped with flat-topped square pinnacles, a string course and coped parapet, with a central lancet on each side under a tiny gable. The ground stage has to the west a segmental-pointed doorway with hoodmould and impost band, with panelled double door and traceried overlight. Above it are two small lancets with impost band. To the south is a canted projection with hipped roof and moulded cornice, containing a 3-light mullioned window flanked by single lights. The second stage has a narrow single lancet on three sides. The bell stage has on each side a splayed recess with moulded segmental pointed head, with two single-lancet louvred bell openings divided by a stepped buttress. A setback plain octagonal spire with ball finial crowns the tower.

Interior

The chancel has a moulded arch with hoodmould and corbels, and round shafts. On either side is a tall pointed opening, the left containing organ pipes and the right a door. The apse has wooden ribs and is lit to the east by a triple lancet with stained glass dated 1913, possibly by Morris & Co. To the north are two pointed arches with organ pipes, and to the south a blank arch and window with patterned stained glass. The nave has an arch-braced roof with collar and wall shafts on corbels, with iron tie rods with tracery. The west end has a traceried wooden gallery with rounded ends, and below it a glazed wooden screen with glazed double doors at each side. Patterned stained glass is located throughout. The transepts have moulded arches with a round granite central pier. The north transept has a doorway to the east.

The entrance hall has stained-glass screens and doors. The tower contains concrete winder stairs with iron stick balusters. The meeting room has an arch-braced roof.

Fittings include a traceried panelled octagonal wooden pulpit and stair, a traceried reading desk, choir stalls and lectern, all of mid-20th century date. Panelled curved benches with shaped ends are present. Memorials include three resited marble tablets of the 19th century.