Leaside Methodist Church And United Reform Church

The Leaside Methodist Church and United Reform Church was initially built as The Independent Chapel in 1816, and subsequently rebuilt between 1858 and 1859 as the Congregational Church. It is constructed of brick with stone window surrounds, the south facade featuring coursed limestone rubble with ashlar limestone dressings, including bands, quoins, and ornamental window and door surrounds. The roof is covered in Welsh slate. The church has a single-cell meeting room layout with a shallow gallery at the south end and a shallow “chancel” bay at the north end.

The south facade is designed in the Romanesque style, appearing as two storeys with an attic, and is subdivided by shallow projecting buttresses into three bays. The central doorway has twin leaf battened doors with foliated scrollwork wrought iron hinges, recessed within two semicircular arches: the inner arch with ornamental discs, the outer with interlaced zigzags, moulded extrados, and impost carried on twin colonnettes. A central triple-light window is positioned above the entrance, flanked by semicircular-headed windows, with colonnettes at the jambs, separating the lights. Above the window is a circular wheel window with eight radiating lights and a central oculus. A plaque at the gable’s apex reads “1816 rebuilt 1859”. The brick sides are divided into five bays by shallow buttresses and feature semicircular headed windows.

The interior features yellow brick walls, with stone windows set in red brick recesses and beneath red brick arches. The glazing is lattice featuring etched and painted quarries by Powell of Whitefriars. A three-light north window, divided by colonnettes, sits within one “chancel” bay; stained and painted glazing depicts scenes from the Resurrection. A foundation stone laid by David Williams Wire, Lord Mayor of London on 25 November 1858 is displayed below. Inside, the roof exposes tie-beam trusses braced below from corbels, queen posts, king post, curved braces, a collar, and struts, which support three purlins, along with principal rafters and curved bracing beneath a boarded ceiling.

The Independent Chapel was established in 1811 by a dissenting group from the Old Independent Chapel in Church Street, with the first chapel opening five years later. The 1859 rebuilding was financed to half the cost by Joseph Chuck of Widbury House, a leading Ware maltster. In 1972, the United Reform Church was formed through the amalgamation of the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches, and in 1978, Ware Methodists joined to form the Leaside Church.