Baptist Church

WORCESTER

SO8555SW SANSOME WALK 620-1/13/503 (East side) 18/08/99 Baptist Church

II

Baptist Church. Dated 1863; with later additions and alterations. Built by Pritchett and Son of Darlington. Coursed sandstone with sandstone ashlar quoins and architraves, ashlar spire, slate roof. PLAN AND EXTERIOR: 5-bay nave with galleried transepts and single-bay chancel and organ galleries above vestries, 2-stage south-west tower over porch. Off-set buttresses to east and west ends. Entrances to west end: double glazed doors in pointed-arched surround; to aisles at either side are pointed plank doors with single cusped light over; quatrefoil in gable. 5-light west window with Decorated-type tracery. Aisles have mainly 2-cusped-light windows with quatrefoils to heads and transoms. Transepts have two single-light windows to lower stage and 4-light windows to upper stage. The east end has two single lights and rose window to apex. Tower has battered sides to lower stage and quatrefoil window; and pair of belfry openings with Decorated-type tracery to each side of upper stage. Octagonal spire with bands of ornament. All openings have double-chamfered surrounds with hoodmoulds and arch over of alternate dressed and undressed voussoirs; hoodmoulds to west end have face stops. INTERIOR: aisles have slender cast-iron pilasters with foliate caps and pointed-arched timber arcade. Central pulpit to east end. Organ loft to east and galleries to west and to transepts have blind arcades to balustrades. Roof is ribbed and panelled. HISTORICAL NOTE: to the east end a foundation stone bears the nscription: 'This stone was laid by Mrs E B Evans of Whitbourne Hall July 28 1863'. A fine example of a robust Gothic Revival exterior in the context of a nonconformist church design of the C19, with an unusually well-designed interior which in its planning is otherwise conventional for its type and period. (Littlebury: Directory for the County of Worcester: 1873-; Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Worcestershire: Harmondsworth: 1968-1985: 322; Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England: Nonconformist Chapels & Meeting Houses(Hfds., Worcs. & Warwicks.: 1986-: 256).