Newport Academy

NEWPORT PAGNELL

SP 84 SE HIGH STREET 645/1/10024 Newport Academy 14-FEB-00

GV II

Independent Chapel, now artists' studios. 1702, extended 1725; later alterations. Built of brick in English Garden Wall bond, with a slate roof. Wide facade facing SW, appropriately plainly detailed, with a brick dentilled horizontal and raking cornice to the gable. A rendered semi-circular panel in the pediment. At the centre a 12-pane cast-iron window with a round head, and on either side similar square-headed 16-pane windows, but 12-pane on the left. On the upper level, a central blind window and 3 further iron windows, but the outer on the left extension, of timber with fanlight, perhaps the original. A stone panel, much eroded, over the central ground-level window, once carried the date. The building continues at the NW end, partly in stone, to provide the entrance, a 6-panelled door in a Tuscan pilastered doorcase with a triglyph frieze, dentils, and a modillion cornice. Attached to the face of the chapel are five much eroded graveslabs, including ones to William Kend (?); Charles Redden, linen draper of the High Street; Mary Mardy, d.1830; William Henry Chapman, d.1845; and a totally eroded sandstone tablet. Various insignificant modern lean-to structures against the rear and end.

Interior: The interior is on an unusual plan, consisting of a narrow rectangle, extended to the N. Within the main body of the chapel an arcade of three depressed arches on pilasters on the rear wall. Shallow pitched boarded ceiling and exposed purlins. It has now been stripped out and an upper floor inserted, strengthened for its one-time use as a telephone exchange.

History: When built, it was described as 'all that new built or new erected house, Chappel of Meeting Place'. The 1725 extension include the provision of side galleries. Due to continued growth, the chapel was replaced in 1880 by the present Congregational church (now United Reformed Church (qv)) with 400 seats for the town's expanding free church community.

Reference: Bull F W, A History of Newport Pagnell, p 142. Simpson J, History of the Town of Newport Pagnell. 1868, pp 48-9.

Listing NGR: SP8757943833