Bethesda Methodist Chapel

STOKE ON TRENT

SJ8847 ALBION STREET, Hanley 613-1/8/45 (South side) 19/04/72 Bethesda Methodist Chapel (Formerly Listed as: ALBION STREET, Hanley Bethesda Methodist Church)

GV II*

Methodist chapel. 1819 with additions of 1859 and 1887. Brick with stuccoed facade, and slate roof. 2-storeyed. Pedimented entrance front to Albion Street, with rusticated lower storey and full-length portico with heavy cornice carried on paired fluted Corinthian shafts. Paired doorways to left and right behind, the inner doors having entablatures carried on consoles, and the outer doorways with tall architraves. Central window with entablature carried on paired consoles. Palladian window over, with Corinthian shafts beneath central pedimented gable. Outer windows are sashes with margin lights. Rear of chapel is Flemish bond brickwork with buff headers. 5 bays and shallow curved apse. Windows with margin lights and stuccoed heads with expressed keystones (blocked to first floor). Central section of apsidal end expressed by raised section to cornice, with panelled decoration. INTERIOR: Previous description records a continuous raking gallery with a plaster vaulted soffit, carried on cast-iron columns. The balustrade is panelled, above a minimal Doric entablature with widely-spaced paterae. On the street side, the gallery is dominated by a large organ in a baroque case. Beneath it, at ground floor level, is a fine octagonal pulpit reached by two opposed flights of stairs, with cast-iron balustrades and hardwood handrails. The pulpit stands within a contemporary communion rail, of similar construction to the stair balustrades, defining an oval snactuary. Both are by Robert Scrivener, 1856. Half-glazed timber screens separate the stairs on the street front from the body of the church. With its pews and minor fittings largely intact, the interior stands virtually as it was finished in 1859 save for a replacement ceiling. The burial crypt below contains a monument to Rev. William Driver, 1831.

Listing NGR: SJ8822847351