Former Welsh Congregational Church

Former Welsh Congregational Church

This is a former public meeting hall, originally known as Commercial Hall, converted for use as a Welsh Congregational chapel. It was probably built or enlarged in the later 1840s, with extensions added in the later 19th and early 20th centuries. The building was purchased by the Welsh Congregational church in 1879, when the upper hall was fitted out as a chapel.

The building is constructed of stock brick with the Radnor Walk elevation stucco rendered and lined as ashlar. It has a pitched slate roof.

The plan comprises a large single hall with small offices added to the south-east. A basement hall and kitchens are reached by stairs accessed from a northern added entrance.

The 19th-century Radnor Walk elevation is asymmetrical, reflecting later additions. An off-centre portico is infilled between what were originally piers, now pilasters, with sash windows featuring small rectangular leaded panes and green margin glazing, and a narrow doorway beneath a similarly glazed overlight. The entablature is set back and, according to a drawing of 1851, was also infilled. Plain blocking courses flank the portico to left and right. A pair of Diocletian windows, glazed similarly to the sashes, are positioned asymmetrically on either side of the portico. To the left of the portico, a protruding single-storey flat-roofed bay of two builds, though with a continuous moulded cornice, contains later 19th or early 20th-century sashes and casements on the front and return, and a pair of narrow panelled doors beneath a shallow overlight. To the right of the portico, an early 20th-century porch contains an entrance reached by steps with a pair of panelled doors and flanking fixed light with small rectangular lights and green margin glazing. To the right of the porch is a mid-19th-century sash with similar glazing and a small inserted entrance. The rear wall of the hall has similar Diocletian windows and sashes.

The hall fills the whole of the raised ground floor. Walls are lined with pilasters embellished with slender moulded panels, which support broad flat ribs of a coved ceiling. Two slender moulded panels are inset in the ceiling. End wall pilasters have paired brackets, and at the southern end shallow alcoves flank a centrepiece with moulded panels with rondels at the angles. The centre of the east wall is broken through behind the portico. A single panelled door leads from the left-hand lobby, and a pair of part-glazed doors with coloured leaded lights lead from the right-hand lobby.

Pine chapel fittings date from the 1880s. The hall is subdivided by a part-glazed timber screen of late 19th or early 20th-century date. The pulpit has carved blind panels to the front and is flanked by steps with balustrades featuring similar carved square newels with elaborate finials, a moulded rail and square balusters. In front is a free-standing table with turned legs and a chair with a pedimented back. The organ, installed around 1895, has a pierced cornice to the case and is set into the south-west bay, which has been pushed out over a basement passage. 20th-century stairs lead to the lower level, which contains a hall and kitchens with suspended ceilings. The lower hall has an inserted dais. Panelled doors, some retaining early 20th-century door furniture, survive.

Radnor Walk was laid out in the 1840s. References to Commercial Hall appear in the late 1840s as an entertainment hall or saloon attached to the Commercial public house on the corner of Radnor Walk and King's Road. As an entertainment hall, it was known as a venue for upmarket balls, concerts, public meetings and as an auction room. An advertisement of 1850 notes that it was considerably enlarged and beautified. A sketch drawing of around 1851 shows the portico on the Radnor Walk elevation with the name over the entrance.

By 1871 the hall was being used as a Nonconformist place of worship. The Welsh community established a church in Chelsea in 1859 and purchased the building in Radnor Walk in 1879. The Welsh Congregational Church also acquired the lower hall and converted it into a church hall and kitchen around 1910. In 1924 the upper hall was reordered and the pulpit was moved to the south wall. The church had a literary society whose debaters included Lloyd George, Tom Ellis and others.

The building is of interest for the history of the Welsh Congregational church in London and of Nonconformism in Chelsea, which in the later 19th century had a strong artisan population.