Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

CAMDEN

TQ3081SW SHAFTESBURY AVENUE 798-1/105/1428 (East side) 04/11/94 No.235 Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church (Formerly Listed as: SHAFTESBURY AVENUE Central Baptist Church)

GV II

Baptist church. c1845-8. By John Gibson. For Sir Samuel Morton Peto on speculation because he considered a church was needed in the area. Grey brick with stone dressings and vertical bands. Early Italian Gothic style. Rectangular plan. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and attics. West front of 3 windows flanked by rectangular towers. 3 central moulded arch entrances above which a Lombardic frieze and large rose window flanked by 2 round-arched windows. Deep Lombardic frieze beneath arcaded attic windows crowned by a balustrade. 4-stage towers with vertical bands and small windows; 4th stages are belfries with round-arched openings, friezes and cornices having trefoil enriched dies at angles; formerly with short spires, removed due to war damage. INTERIOR: horseshoe-shaped auditorium with curved gallery supported on polygonal cast-iron columns; the gallery with arcaded-patterned front. Decorated square columns rise from gallery to roof. Good curved pews, and stained glass incorporating texts. Balcony reached by winding wrought-iron stairs in angles either side of narrow central entrance foyer refitted c1960s. HISTORICAL NOTE: this was the first Baptist chapel to stand prominently on a London street, looking like a "church", reflecting the improved status of Victorian dissenters. Legend records that when Peto sought to lease the land, the First Commissioner of Woods & Forests told him that Nonconformist chapels were too dull: he liked a church with a spire. "A spire?" exclaimed Peto, "My Lord, we shall have two!".

Listing NGR: TQ3007881386