Ceylon Baptist Church And Hall

The Ceylon Baptist Church and Hall was originally built in 1848, with a new front added in 1886 and a church hall constructed to the rear in 1908, designed by Barnes. The original chapel of 1848 is a three-bay structure built of red brick with blue brick dressings, featuring large pointed arch panels containing tall, three-light windows with Y tracery. A moulded string runs along the frieze, topped by a moulded brick parapet cornice. In 1886, the church was slightly lengthened, and a three-bay buttressed screen was added to the front, using darker red brick with stone dressings. The buttresses are topped by tall, slender stone pinnacles with ornate crocket finials, and the parapets over the flanking bays have a steep gable with a coping and crocket finial above a large, traceried central window. The central doorway has a moulded three-centred arch with panelled spandrels and a dropped hood mould. The flanking bays have two-light windows that mirror the tracery details.

The interior of the church is largely as it was furnished in the 1880s, featuring a curved corner gallery with a serpentine front and a cast iron balustrade. The pews, pulpit desk, and organ are all examples of excellent joinery and turned work from this period.

Barnes’s 1908 addition of the church hall is a well-executed Arts and Crafts composition in the perpendicular style, with a broad gabled west front, coped with shaped kneelers. The hall is lit by a large, seven-light, panel-traceried window on the first floor. The hall is built of red brick with stone dressings and band courses, showcasing freely handled curved ogee themes in the window leads and tracery. The broad hall window is flanked by shallow, banded buttresses that break through the gable, featuring shaped stone copings and openwork. Arts and Crafts iron finials adorn the building. A two-story annexe projects from the north side and includes a splayed entrance return, sharing a similar window type. The eaves are supported by wrought iron brackets. The south elevation features seven bays of tall, three-light, perpendicular-derived windows on the first floor, with a plain ground floor. Leadwork is visible on the downpipes.

The interior of the hall comprises offices and rooms on the ground floor, with a substantial seven-bay hall extending the length of the building on the first floor. Notable features include hammerbeam timber with a wrought iron centre tier, pitch pine matchboarding, and lively Arts and Crafts stained glass in pseudo cartouche and floral patterns. Dado panelling is capped by a band of blue-green ceramic initialled donor tiles.