United Reformed Church And Attached Walls

The United Reformed Church, originally a Congregational church, was built between 1934 and 1935 by architect Frederick Lawrence and builder E Martin & Son. It features reddish-brown brick in Flemish Bond with decorative brick and tile panels, and has plain tile roofs. The church has a cruciform plan oriented north-south, typical for ecclesiastical buildings, including a nave with a west entrance, transepts, and a central crossing tower, as well as an apsidal chancel with a north-east vestry and a small south-east chamber.

Designed in a Byzantine style, the church has round-arched entrances and windows, with semi-circular brick steps and stepped surrounds. The doors are made of nail-studded boards with decorative strap-hinges, while the windows feature decorative geometric leading. Square angle buttresses rise above tall offset parapets with chamfered coping, and there are lancet windows and raised verges on the gables. The square two-stage tower has a pyramidal roof topped with a cross added in 1959, and each face of the upper stage has one small window.

At the west end of the nave, there is a full-height canted bay entrance lobby with three tall narrow windows, flanked by slightly lower flat-roofed porches that have archways at the front and side. Low brick walls project from the sides and center, originally framing a lily pond, with three windows on the north and south sides. The transepts have similar window arrangements and gable entrances. The east end of the chancel features a canted bay window with three tall narrow windows, flanked by paired windows.

Inside, the church has round crossing-arches, a parquet floor, and decorative marbling in the chancel and entrance lobby. The roof displays exposed rafters, purlins, and ridge-pieces. There are panelled wooden internal porches and decorative organ pipes set in the east wall of the south transept. The church also includes matching panelled pews, a font, an altar, and fronts to the pulpit and reading-desk areas, with coloured glass in the apse windows.