Angel Baptist Church And Attached Iron Railings

This is a small non-conformist church dating to approximately 1823-24, originally built for Thomas Elliott Esq, patron of the Calvinistic Methodists. It was formerly known as Providence Chapel and Mount Zion Chapel. The church is constructed of red stock brick with a stucco front facade and a Welsh slate gabled roof, and forms part of a contemporary terrace in Chadwell Street. The building has a rectangular plan and two storeys, featuring a four-window range 1:2:1, plus a two-window range to the side walls, with a projecting pedimented central bay. The windows are round-arched sashes with margin lights and curved and radial glazing bars set within arched recessed panels; the central sashes have moulded archivolts and impost strings. The central bay is framed by plain pilaster strips and a shallow pediment. A tetrastyle Ionic portico with a deep entablature and flat roof sits centrally, flanked by empty niches. Twin entrances have double-panelled doors and plain rectangular overlights, with cast iron railings. A stucco cornice and blocking course tops the facade, with a stucco parapet above the pediment, embellished with urns at the corners.

The interior presents a plain classical treatment, although it has been altered. It has a two-aisled plan with a late 19th-century open timber roof and a matchboarded ceiling, with tie-beams supported on large, elaborate corbels. The walls are simply painted plaster with a 20th-century dado. The pulpit wall is dominated by a central aedicule; a dentiled pediment rises into the first floor and is supported by fluted pilasters. Architraved 20th-century doors are flanked on the ground floor by original heavy entablatures and high broken pediments. A clerestory level features round-arched windows. An 1884 high-level pine pulpit, originally in a debased Gothic style (shortened circa 1985), is present, constructed of post and rail with turned balusters, a projecting front, and flanking steps. There is also a Gothic-style oak lectern. Plain pine pews, matching the pulpit’s date and style, are arranged in central rows and raking rows to the sides. A steep, curved gallery to the rear has a plain panelled front, supported on slender cast iron columns, and is accessed by flanking staircases. A 20th-century partition separates the sanctuary from a vestibule.