Swaythling Methodist Church Including Church Hall, Workshops And Manse

This is a Methodist church complex, built in 1932 by Herbert Collins, comprising the church itself, a church hall, workshops, and a manse. The church is constructed of buff-coloured brick in an English garden wall bond, with alternating red brick headers, and features concrete dressings. The roof is copper-clad, with a shallow dome and an octagonal copper-clad cupola. The architectural style is Neo-Georgian.

The church hall is octagonal in plan, with a gallery over the north entrance, which includes a large porch with stairs and a projection room. Attached to the south side is a two-storey wing with church rooms and a smaller auditorium, known as the Chapel of Youth, on the first floor. A wing returns to the south, incorporating the church hall, and a low single-storey workshop range is situated to the west of a courtyard. The manse, also on the west side, is a small two-storey house with a hipped roof behind a parapet. All windows are metal frame with margin glazing bars.

The north porch has a recessed pedimented centre with a portico in antis, with columns supporting an entablature, broken at the centre by a large round arch. Flanking the porch are stair towers with tall windows. The wing at the rear has a moulded brick polygonal arch doorway, breaking the façade forward.

Inside the church, the vestibule features a panelled dado and murals by Joyce Withecombe depicting The Good Samaritan and The Prodigal Son. The main auditorium has a shallow domed ceiling with a stained glass lantern, a slightly raked floor, a gallery with panelled front, dado panelling, and a mural on a screen opposite the projection room. Organ pipes are located in arches either side of a later altar and rostrum. The Chapel of Youth on the first floor has a shallow domed ceiling with ribs and a stained glass central light. The rear hall has a segmental vaulted ceiling.