Breachwood Green Baptist Church

TL 12 SE KINGS WALDEN CHAPEL ROAD (East side) Breachwood Green

4/4 Breachwood Green Baptist Church

GV II

Baptist church. 1904 by Geo Baines & Son of London, Mallett & Wood builders Luton. Red brick banded with white brick, cream terracotta traceried windows, caps to piers and moulded copings. A tall 2-storeys building in a free Arts and Crafts Perpendicular style, with shallow W part, 4 windows long narrower nave, and one window long lower E part. Adjoining on E 2-storeys 4 windows long plum brick plainer building of 1897 with engraved memorial plaques to its building. W front gabled with very large 7 lights window with ogee traceried head under moulded segmental arch with drip and leaf stops. Twin double doors below up 2 steps, segmental traceried heads to each with moulded drip carried up to shield-shaped finial. Large leaf stops. Splayed brick jambs and half-glazed panelled doors. Bold tapering buttresses flank front and have lower hipped roofed square stair turrets to each side. Buttresses have panelled head, wide overhanging bracketed cornice, swept pointed lead caps and tall wrought iron finials of a standard type supporting a circle with tendril brackets. Moulded terracotta crochet finial to gable. Roofs of stair turrets and body of church have deep overhang with moulded rafter ends painted white projecting beyond gutter. Stained glass to W window and fanlights. Windows to nave at 2 levels in moulded terracotta, 3-lights cinquefoil under flat head to 1st floor: 3-lights with cinquefoil heads and ogee tracery under segmental heads to ground floor. Interior: galleried on 3 sides and choir gallery at E with organ with pointed arched recess on bold foliate corbels. Central pulpit and railed foredeck. Posts to this taper to top with wide moulded square caps. Ironwork tendril balusters with beaten copper hearts. Gallery posts similarly tapered with bold square caps and arcaded panelling pierced below rail. 5 arched trusses with tie rods. All windows Art Nouveau stained glass features in cathedral glass field. Heart shape cut in pew ends. Under N gallery 'Bunyan's Pulpit 1658' (in ink on back). Square C17 oak with moulded plank door on preacher's left, shelf, horizontal moulded plank front, seat-shelf within and moulded square knob finial to rear LH corner on which door is hung by butterfly hinges. Formerly in use at Coleman's Green where this church was founded. Doors with stained glass panels and copper push plates with repouse hearts. (Pevsner (1977)219).

Listing NGR: TL1508321958