Caledonian Road Methodist Church And Attached Railings

Caledonian Road Methodist Church, formerly known as the Primitive Methodist Chapel, is a non-conformist Methodist chapel built in 1870. It was restored in 1953, with internal alterations made around 1972. The chapel was designed by T & W Stone and built by William Goodman. It features buff brick with stone and red brick decoration, particularly in the alternate voussoirs, and has projecting eaves, although the materials of the roof are obscured.

This handsome chapel is designed in an Italianate style and has a rectangular plan. It stands two storeys high and has a four-window range on the main elevation, with a five-window range on the right-hand return wall facing Market Road. The symmetrical facade on Caledonian Road includes a projecting ground floor that spans the full width of the front elevation, providing an entrance porch and lobbies leading to the gallery stairs. The central doorway is flanked by triple round-arched windows supported by cast-iron columns, with memorial plaques located beneath the windows. A stone string course and narrow cornice run along the top, with a parapet featuring a Greek cross motif in red brick. Above the doorway is a broken pediment that contains a name plaque. The upper storey features round-arched windows with impost strings, and the frieze above repeats the Greek cross decoration, topped by a sharply projecting cornice. The window frames are made of cast iron and consist of three circular lights arranged vertically, with the top light opening in alternate windows.

On the Market Road elevation, there is a basement area. The ground-floor windows are sashes with segmental heads, while the upper floor windows are sashes similar to those on the main facade.

Inside, the chapel has been altered somewhat due to the addition of walls beneath the gallery. The wooden gallery is supported by slender cast-iron columns and features ornamental cast-iron panels beneath the handrail. The original seats remain, and the ceiling is coved and coffered, with ribs resting on ornamental corbels. A 19th-century organ was installed in the 1930s. This chapel is regarded as one of the best-designed and best-executed chapels in Islington.