Congregational Church

The Congregational Church, built in 1911-12, was designed by the architect Percy Richard Morley Horder. It is constructed of ragstone with stone dressings, and has a slate roof. The building has a rectangular plan, including a nave with low, lean-to aisles, a short tower at the west end, and adjoining vestry rooms.

The exterior features a steeply-pitched roof with a tall, pointed, recessed, and splayed window in the gable end. Below is a three-light window with cusped heads, illuminating the entrance vestibule. Access to the left is via a low porch. The clerestory contains nine windows with trefoil heads, alongside smaller, flat-arched windows to the aisles. The squat, crenellated tower has louvered belfry openings supported by unusually stepped buttresses.

Inside, the timber roof is supported by crown post tie beams. The walls are simply stone-faced, with three-bay arcades featuring wide, shallow, pointed, and moulded arches. Square, chamfered piers are present, and the arcade walls are articulated horizontally by moulded strings and vertically by chamfered stone ribs that extend to the roof level, terminating in large, naturalistically-carved corbels depicting the emblems of the Evangelists. The clerestory has three windows per bay, with shallow pointed arches and splayed soffits. Aisle passages have pointed arches, and flat-arched, plain-glazed windows. A tall west window with Decorated tracery and plain glazing is flanked by small arched recesses, each containing a separate gallery with panelled wooden fronts.

The east end features a stone, moulded chancel arch leading to a shallow, three-sided chancel with a painted, vaulted ceiling and coloured glazed windows above. There is also a panelled dais matching a panelled reredos, a simple tripartite pierced screen, and a pierced front to the communion table. Carved wooden organ cases in a Gothic Revival style are positioned either side of the choir. Original choir stalls, a pulpit, a reading desk, pews, and light fittings remain. A chapel in the southeast corner is divided by a screen with a carved and gilded frieze.

The vestry room at the rear of the church is panelled, featuring a wooden fire surround and one original light fitting. The interior is simple, elegant, and completely intact. Morley Horder was the son of William Garrett Horder, a Congregational hymnologist. He was articled to George Devey, absorbing a love of the English vernacular tradition of building. Morley Horder’s practice included several Congregational Churches built just before the First World War in the London suburbs, and the Cheshunt Congregational College in Cambridge.