United Reformed Church, Hatfield Heath

United Reformed Church, Hatfield Heath

A United Reformed Church designed by architect Thomas Lewis Banks and built in 1875 as a Congregational Church. The building is constructed from knapped flint with brick and ashlar dressings, and features slate roofs.

The church has a rectangular plan with offset towers at the north-west and north-east corners. The main roof ridge runs north to south, while at the south end a two-storey gabled range with its roof ridge running east to west is linked to the main building. A late 20th-century attached church room and linking building forming an L-shape to the east are not included in the listing.

The exterior is in the Gothic Revival style. The principal north elevation faces Chelmsford Road and comprises a gable end flanked by angle buttresses with flushwork, topped by slender pinnacles. Two-storey towers flanking the façade give it added width and grandeur. These towers have two-light pointed arch windows with tracery to the ground floor, and paired lancet windows to the upper storey and on the returns. The centrally placed double-leaf wooden door with decorative strapwork is set within a pointed arch opening under a shallow gabled canopy with flushwork jambs. To either side are arcaded pairs of gothic windows with a slender central pier. Above the entrance is a large five-light stained glass window with geometric tracery. Near the apex is an arrangement of three breathers for ventilation. Behind the gabled façade rises an octagonal fleche, a spire rising directly from the roof without a supporting tower. The roof is punctuated by a series of regular tiny gablets, probably for ventilation.

The side elevations have four regular bays, with the fifth bay to the south end being slightly offset. Gothic detailing is applied to all fenestration, but the window surrounds are of stock brick rather than ashlar. Each bay is lit by a pair of pointed arch windows two storeys high, with stone banding midway up expressing the position of the gallery internally. A buttress stands between each pair of windows.

At the south end is a two-storey Sunday School building, part of the original symmetrical design as shown on an architect's original drawing owned by the congregation. It has its own gabled roof at right angles to the main building and can be accessed through the main church at both ground and upper floor levels. To the south-east is a late 20th-century single-storey church room extension in stock brick with plain tiled roof, joined to the main building by a small flat-roofed link with large timber and glass doors.

The interior is entered through a lobby accessed via the front door, with four-centred arch double doors to left and right providing access to the stair towers. These lead to the main worship space through a four-centred arch door and to the gallery level by way of a stone turning staircase with iron balusters formed in the shape of gothic arches, topped with wooden handrails. The gallery is reached through another four-centred arch door.

Fittings throughout are consistently of warm coloured timber, including the gallery, pews and pulpit. The ground floor contains a full set of pews believed to be original to the building, arranged in three groups. At the south end is a dais surmounted by an imposing panelled pulpit reached by flanking staircases. Behind the pulpit, the organ covers most of the south wall, with doors on either side leading into the vestry and Sunday School.

The gallery is supported on slender cast-iron Corinthian columns and surrounds three sides, becoming an organ loft on the fourth side at the south end. It contains original pews and a clock in front of the organ with a broken-pedimented timber surround. The gallery is enclosed by timber panelling with marquetry, quatrefoils and decorative open carving. Two doors in the south end give access to the upper floor of the Sunday School building.

The church has a timber-clad ceiling and an open vaulted hammer beam roof with spandrels pierced by trefoils and quatrefoils, decorated with hanging finials.

The interior of the Sunday School building is less decorative than the main worship space. It has painted panelling below a dado rail and timber beams springing from scroll-shaped stone corbels. The doors are late 20th-century fire doors. The gothic-arched windows in the upper floor were removed due to a dry rot outbreak and the openings were boarded up at the time of assessment in January 2021.