United Reformed Church And Adjoining Church Hall, Vestry And Manse

United Reformed Church and adjoining church hall, vestry and Sunday school, Dodington.

This Congregational Chapel was founded in 1789 and largely built in 1813, with subsequent additions and alterations in 1815, 1846, 1900 and 1915. It is constructed of red brick with an ashlar façade of sandstone featuring chamfered rustication, and has a gabled slate roof of shallow pitch.

The chapel is oriented with its dais at the north-east end and entrance front facing south-west. It incorporates a swept gallery and a separate organ gallery behind the dais. The church hall and first-floor Sunday school are attached to the eastern corner.

The entrance front features a central three-bay projection with a cornice breaking forward over it. The first-floor has round-arched windows with Venetian tracery, which were altered around 1900. A ground-floor Tuscan portico in antis with full entablature spans three bays, with a frieze inscribed 'CONGREGATIONAL CHAPEL 1846'. Four stone steps lead to the entrance. The interior of the porch, altered circa 1900, contains a central hollow-chamfered round archway flanked by quadrant blocks with moulded cornices, blocking courses and pairs of leaded windows with moulded reveals. A three-light segmental-headed window with moulded mullions and reveals sits centrally behind the arch, with pairs of four-panelled doors in returns to left and right, each topped by a moulded cornice. The returns feature a moulded stone eaves cornice and wrought-iron eases brackets. Four bays contain two tiers of two-light windows, with round-arched Venetian tracery windows above. The church hall and Sunday school are two storeys high, with the side elevation displaying three bays of glazing bar sashes of 16-panes to the ground floor with stone cills and lintels, and round-arched 12-paned sashes to the first floor. A gabled porch stands in the re-entrant angle. The vestry rooms adjoin to the north-west.

The interior is largely unaltered and features moulded cornices and a ceiling with two recessed rectangular panels. A swept gallery running to three sides sits upon cast-iron columns, with a raised and fielded panelled front incorporating a clock at its centre. The gallery has raked seating and box pews with ramped sides. A large round arch at the rear with nook shafts frames the organ positioned centrally, with flanking round-arched recesses on either side. Doors feature reeded architraves. The body of the church retains its box pews. A large wooden pulpit was installed in 1915. The church preserves 18th-century brass memorial tablets that were originally taken from the Presbyterian Chapel in Dodington and discovered there in 1896.

The United Reformed Church split from the Presbyterian Congregation in 1797. In 1798 they converted a small currier's shop to serve as their chapel. This was considerably enlarged and fitted out in 1813, with the vestry enlarged in 1815 and a schoolroom added at first-floor level. A new school hall was constructed to the south-east with a new façade in 1846. Further alterations were made around 1900 when the porchway was re-ordered and the original arched sash windows replaced with the present Venetian tracery. The building's centenary was marked in 1913, and in 1915 a new pulpit, choir stalls and timber screen behind the dais were installed.

Mr John David Jones, father of the famous composer Sir Edward German (1862-1936), served as honorary organist and choirmaster at the church.