The Lynn Museum (Formerly The Union Baptist Chapel)

The Lynn Museum, formerly the Union Baptist Chapel

This Union Baptist chapel was built in 1859 and designed by Robert Moffat Smith. Schoolrooms were added to the east end in 1867, and the building was converted to a museum in 1904. The interior was re-floored and given suspended ceilings in the 1960s, and a further extension was added to the north side in 1973. The chapel is constructed of gault brick banded with red brick and with some stone dressings, with slate roofs.

The building follows an ecclesiastical plan with a north-west steeple, nave, and transepts to the north and south, forming a cruciform east end. The schoolroom extension to the east is of double-gabled form with north and south flanking gables.

The exterior features a three-stage north-west tower of square section, supported by two flat buttresses up to the ringing chamber on the north side and by one on the south side. The recessed west doorway sits under a pointed arch inscribed "Museum and Art Gallery 1904" and develops into a tall pointed gablet containing a trefoil. A single pointed lancet lights the ringing chamber to the north and west. A string course runs below 2-light plate-tracery belfry windows on each facet of the tower. Below these windows is a pear-drop frieze, followed by a broached stone-clad tapering spire with one small lucarne to each facet.

A canted baptistry to the south is lit through two tall 2-light Decorated windows with cusped lights and encircled trefoil vesicas. A pear-drop frieze runs below the cornice. There is a blind window to the south facet of the baptistry apse, and one trefoiled lancet to the south face of the baptistry beneath an arched cornice.

The north nave contains four lancets, with the two in the recessed portion designed to step up visually with the ringing chamber lancet. The south nave contains two narrow lancets, followed to the east by the south transept gable, which has two narrow lancets separated by a flat buttress, clasping corner buttresses, and a wheel window in the gable filled with three cusped trefoils. The north transept front is identical but without buttressing.

The eastern arm has lean-to vestries to the north and south, the southern vestry featuring an arched doorway and a 2-light window. Above each vestry in the main wall is one circular window with three uncusped trefoils, lighting the organ gallery. The east end is partly obscured by the schoolroom addition, which partially covers a wheel window with Star of David tracery.

The schoolroom has a symmetrical south elevation with a central gable containing an arched doorway under a hoodmould with voussoirs of banded brick. A wheel window in the gable displays Star of David tracery. Flanking this gable to east and west is one 2-light arched window with banded voussoirs and Y tracery, and one arched lancet beyond with similar voussoirs. Each of the five elements is separated by narrow flat buttresses.

The north elevation has a similar gable with three stepped lancets in the gable head. The lower elevation is partly obscured and altered by a flat-roofed single-storey brick extension of 1973. The east end displays two unpierced gables with prominent red brick banding.

The interior of the main vessel features four circular cast-iron piers with wide fillets to the cardinal points rising to block capitals, continuing as similar piers with crocket capitals beneath the main posts of the roof. The main posts, braced back to the side walls at their base, rise to arcade plates and have arched braces in three directions, developing into continuous arches towards the transepts. The arched braces running inward support the principal rafters and meet at collars to form a continuous arch. Secondary upper purlins are present, with arches beneath the arcade plates and vertical posts to the plates.

The tower contains one arched opening to the west and south. A west raking gallery is supported on a single square post with chamfered edges, from which runs a beam to the west end and a north-south beam under the gallery front. The gallery has a plain plank and muntin balustrade.

The east gallery (organ chamber) has a similar gallery front and is reached by a staircase from the south entry.

The schoolroom contains two pairs of circular cast-iron piers with Corinthian capitals supporting the valley between the two roof structures. A doorway opening to the north was added in 1973.