Baptist Church House Kingsgate House

Baptist Church House with Kingsgate House

An office block and shops with former chapel, built 1901-1903 on Southampton Row in Camden, with Kingsgate House forming the return and rear sections on Catton Street. Designed by Arthur Keen, architect for the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland. The building was restored in 1946 by RM Piggott. Exterior sculpture was executed by Richard Garbe, and internal plasterwork by Lawrence Turner.

The building is constructed in Portland stone ashlar with tiled roofs, adopting a "Wrenaissance" style enriched with Flemish-inspired shaped gables and eclectic Baroque and Arts and Crafts detailing.

The main Southampton Row frontage comprises 4 storeys with attic gables and a 4-stage attic tower, arranged in 5 bays. The Catton Street return consists of 3 bays, and a 6-bay wing extends along that street. The north-west corner is splayed. The ground floor features 3 wide segmental-arched shopfronts, with the original shop window surviving at the south end. Off-centre centre doors and fanlight are present. The first floor has segmental-arched tripartite windows over the entrance, flanked by attached Corinthian columns, with additional openings at the south end bay. The second and third floors display alternate flush rusticated bays with recessed bays containing giant Ionic columns extending through both storeys. The third floor carries 4 arch-headed windows with Ionic half columns and pediments; the fourth floor has 4 straight-headed windows with additional flanking openings to the south end bay on both floors. First and second floor bands, rusticated angle quoins, and an attic cornice articulate the composition. Throughout, sashes with glazing bars are employed. The attic features a pediment over the entrance bay with an attic tower above, displaying Wrennian-inspired angle pilasters, urns, and a dentil cornice. An octagonal bell stage is pierced by arched louvred openings. Concave octagonal arched windows with lunettes are surmounted by shaped verges and apex aedicules. Extensive metalwork decoration ornaments balconies and sills. A foundation tablet dated 1901 and a statue of John Bunyan by Richard Garbe, sculptor, adorn the splayed north-west angle.

The Catton Street return comprises 3 bays of stone ashlar and 6 bays of red brick with stone dressing. Arched ground floor openings are present, with gabled first floor and arch-headed second floor sashes with glazing bars.

Attached to the north-east is the former Kingsgate Chapel, a 2-storey structure with attic, polygonal in plan. It features tripartite lunettes, angle pilasters, and a polygonal tiled cupola with clerestory and conical roof. A 2-storey advanced porch is attached, and a 3-stage tower with angle quoins and gabled windows rises above, topped by a swept lead roof with cupola.

The interiors of Baptist Church House retain tiled and vaulted ground and first floor corridors. The entrance hall is pilastered with a barrel vault, a ceiling treatment repeated throughout the ground and first floors. A dog-leg stone tread stair in 17th-century manner with substantial balusters and wooden handrail ascends to the first floor; metal-work balustrades serve the upper floor stairs. A statue of Charles Haddon Spurgeon by Derwent Wood, which formerly stood on an inscribed plinth beneath a niche in the entrance hall, is now missing.

The original 2-storey Kingsgate Chapel to the rear was divided at gallery level in 1939. It is octagonal in plan with a dome finishing in a columned light monitor. It features fine plaster ornament augmented by low relief panels depicting varieties of British trees in an Arts and Crafts manner, executed by Lawrence Turner. The interior has recently been sealed to the weather and fumigated. Following the 1939 division, the upper half became the Union's Council Chamber, while the former Council Chamber was renamed the "Shakespeare Room", after the Union Secretary at the time the complex was built.

The Shakespeare Room occupies the first floor (now No.108) and is a barrel-vaulted space of 3 bays containing splendid Arts and Crafts plasterwork by Lawrence Turner. The chimney piece is fashioned from polished alabaster and features a low relief terracotta plaque depicting Baptist missionaries liberating aboriginals, signed Doulton of Lambeth and attributed to George Tinworth. Wood panelling lines the lower walls. The tympanum of the barrel vault opposite the entrance bears a low relief portrait bust of Robert Hall in stone. Diocletian windows retain original leaded glazing.

The former Committee Room, now No.107, occupies the north-west corner of the first floor and is accessed via a short barrel-vaulted corridor with top glazing. A plaque in the corridor wall records those associated with the project upon its completion. The ceiling is divided into nine compartments, with principal divisions ornamented by rich plasterwork. A second terracotta low relief plaque, also attributed to Tinworth, is positioned above the fireplace.

The former Library occupies the second floor, now room No.208, and features wood panelling and an exceptionally fine chimney surround with inlaid wood and roundels in an Arts and Crafts manner. Original book cases fixed to the walls survive. The ceiling is divided into 12 compartments across 4 bays. Four segmental-arched clerestory windows to the east wall stand above the library cases, with two additional windows to the west wall; all windows retain lead glazing of original design.

The General Secretary's room, said to contain a plaster cornice with central pendant, and the Visitor's Room with panelled ceiling and cornice, could not be located during inspection, though the rooms may have been renamed. Many original doors survive, as do several features from the 1939 refurbishment, including stair rails and floors.

The British Council of Churches was inaugurated at this address in 1942.