Central Baptist Church And Ancillary Buildings To South

Central Baptist Church and its ancillary buildings, including a hall and vestry, were built in 1910 by George Baines and Son of London, with J. Nichol of Southampton as the builder. The church is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond with freestone dressings and is designed in a Free Gothic style, featuring slate roofs.

The church has a wide auditorium with its entrance at the east end and an apse at the west end, along with short wide transepts and a tower at the northeast corner. The east front showcases a large gable-end of the auditorium, which includes a prominent 5-light Perpendicular window adorned with pinnacles and blind tracery at the apex. There is a porch with a tent-shaped gable parapet and flanking turrets, with the right turret rising as a corner turret for the tall northeast tower. This tower features stone bands, tall bell-openings, a cornice with gargoyles, and a parapet that sweeps up between the corner turrets, topped with an octagonal openwork traceried wooden lantern and a short spire.

To the left of the church, the small vestry has a canted bay and hipped roof, while further left is the hall, which has a 5-light Perpendicular window above a pinnacled doorway and flanking turrets, along with a fleche on the roof. The north elevation of the church displays twin gables for the transept on the right, featuring two Perpendicular windows and squat corner turrets, with a fleche over the main roof.

Inside, the church auditorium boasts exposed hammerbeam roof trusses, supported at the east end by piers from the transept arcades that have polished granite shafts and stiff-leaf capitals. Similar shafts and capitals are found on the responds of the moulded chancel arch. The seating is arranged in a concentric plan of curved benches. The hall is aisled and features a timber arcade and hammerbeam roof.