Memorial Baptist Church

TQ 48 SW 251/4/10051 03-APR-00

BARKING ROAD Plaistow Memorial Baptist Church

II

Baptist Church. 1921-2 by William Hayne. Gault brick with red brick east front with stone and marble dressings and details; slate roofs. Byzantine style. PLAN: open basilican plan with aisles and apse; liturgical east and west reversed. EXTERIOR: east front with 5-stage square-section corner towers right and left. Each tower with polygonal angles rising to polygonal turrets framing octagonal drum and dome. Entrances to towers with round-arched marble door surrounds with square heads, each with a rectangular light in soffit. Round-headed window in second stage; banding between stages. Round-headed window in fourth stage below blind arcading and the drum of the dome with square pierced panel. 3-bay, 3-stage centrepiece consists of gabled centre with a wide arched marble door surround: triple order, with bulbous columns terminating in Byzantine capitals. Doorway architrave on twin central columns. Wide radially-glazed arched overlight. Doors replaced with plate glass. 3 arched windows to second stage flanked by single windows in bays right and left. Gabled head with 5-light Diocletian window. Polygonal turrets right and left. Side bays with pierced square panels to parapet. 2-storey north and south returns lit through segmental windows to ground floor and arched first-floor windows. Elevations punctuated by polygonal red-brick turrets and stock-brick pilasters. North return with square-headed doorway. INTERIOR: sanctuary with deeply coffered ceiling, of geometrical pattern ribbing radiating from central oculus and with principal octagonal framing. Projector opening to west. Aisles closed 1977 with solid walls underbuilding original 3-sided gallery, creating meeting room at east end, with kitchen to the south. Panelled gallery balustrade remains. Western apse with wide semi-circular arch towards sanctuary. Total-immersion font under floor. Apse walls with open arched arcading at upper level standing on panelled solid balustrade and with rear wall pierced by 2 transomed windows. 3-sided timber pulpit to north of apse, with panelling and vitruvian scroll decoration. Organ case opposite, of 1924 by Spurden Rutt & Co. Ltd. Of Leyton.