Wonersh United Reformed Church

Wonersh United Reformed Church

This United Reformed church, originally Congregational, was built in 1880 to designs by William Howard Seth-Smith. The building is constructed of coursed Bargate stone with Bath stone dressings. Interior walls are of cream brick, and the roofs are clad with replacement red clay tiles, though an undated watercolour in the church shows the original roof had striped red and grey tiles, with red clay tiles to the spires.

The church is designed in a free Gothic Revival style. The plan comprises a nave with a broad eastern trigonal apse, a southern transept now containing the organ loft with an adjoining angled south porch, and a larger off-centre north transept containing the Sunday school. The north transept is partitioned from the nave by a two-bay arcade with timber screens and has a small porch at its eastern end and a door giving access to the northern spirelet in the north-east corner. The north transept has a western projection with a pitched roof and is divided internally by a two-bay arcade. To the west of the nave is a transverse vestry with an office and kitchen to the west, accessed by doors on either side of the nave and from the western end of the Sunday school via a small lobby. A flat-roofed toilet block was added to the western elevation in 2002, and a small brick outshut of probably late 20th-century date stands at the western end of the north elevation.

The exterior features coursed Bargate stone walling with fenestration of Bath stone segmental pointed arches. The nave and apse have two-stage diagonal buttresses with Bath stone capping and framework. The roof is half-hipped to the west and hipped to the east, with a two-stage hexagonal spirelet, the lower part clad in red clay tiles and the upper part in replacement grey tiles, topped by a weathervane. The central section was originally open timberwork but now has timber panels. Gables have bargeboards, ridge tiles and finials.

The southern elevation of the nave features a large window at the western end with simple bar tracery, quoins and Bargate stone voussoirs. The southern transept has a blind gable-end with paired Bath stone banding and a plain Bath stone shield set in a square-headed surround with hood mould and quoins. The western side of the transept has a plain lancet window. The eastern side is adjoined by an angled gabled porch with an arched entrance with Bargate stone voussoirs and flanking buttresses, reached by three steps. The white-painted doors have decorative hinge straps.

The trigonal apse comprises three bays separated by diagonal buttresses. The windows to each bay have plain bar tracery, quoins and Bargate stone voussoirs, with individual gables topping each bay. Below the window in the central bay is a foundation stone bearing the date 21 April 1880. The northern elevation of the nave has two plain arched windows. At the intersection with the north transept is an octagonal bell tower with a tall two-stage square-section spire clad in grey replacement tiles. The central section of the spire was possibly originally open timberwork but later had louvres, now replaced by wooden panels. The north transept has a timber porch to its east elevation, set on a stone plinth with a pitched roof, tripartite lead-glazed windows and decorative hinge straps to the white-painted door. The north elevation has stone banding and a single large five-light arched window. Adjoining the westward extension of the transept is a later small brick outshut with a tiled shed roof. The western gabled end has an entrance with an arched doorway and tiled shed roof supported on timber brackets with polygonal stone corbels, flanked by a pair of plain arched windows with quoins and Bargate stone voussoirs. The southern window is truncated by a 2002 single-storey flat-roofed brick extension containing toilets.

The southern elevation of the nave has a small square-headed window at the top of the gable but is otherwise obscured by the pitched-roofed vestry range. This has a pair of segmental arched windows with quoins, tile sills and replacement metal-framed glazing, and a door also with a segmental arch. Beneath the elevation are steps giving access to a basement boiler room, covered by a modern timber-framed corrugated-metal roofed pentice. The western elevation of the vestry range has a pair of doors set in segmental arched openings with quoins, with a tripartite window between them set in a segmental arch with tiled sill.

Interior

The nave and porch are lined with cream brick laid in English garden-wall bond. Other rooms are plastered. The porch has a softwood boarded roof, a bench and inner arched doors with leaded glazing. The boarded hammer-beam nave roof has trusses springing from stone corbels decorated with plain heraldic shields. The two trusses at the western end of the nave are set diagonally with a pendant where they cross. At the eastern end, the roof over the trigonal apse is supported by four hammer-beam trusses fanning from the principal lateral truss, again with a pendant at the junction. The floor is of softwood boarding. The nave has dado-height vertical board panelling and three blocks of pews with a pew to the east wall. The front few rows of pews have been removed and replaced by modern chairs. The pulpit is a raised dais reached by flights of steps on either side and fronted by a timber balustrade with fretwork decoration, moulded handrail and octagonal newel posts with facetted finials. The centre of the balustrade incorporates a lectern with panelling below. The rear of the dais has vertical board panelling with dado panelling and a raised central section, set within a large recessed blind gothic arch. The arches to the north and south transepts have angled corbels, those to the north transept springing from a central column. The openings have panelled timber screens with folding doors. The south transept contains an organ dating from 1933. Windows have multi-coloured glass in leaded lights.

The Sunday School has a modern suspended ceiling cutting through the two-bay arcade dividing the north transept from its western projection, which has a boarded roof. All stonework has been overpainted. The arch to the eastern porch has a pair of doors with panels of diagonal boarding. The doors to the vestry have arched panels and are set in a square-headed opening.

The vestry has a pair of stone fireplaces divided by the top part of a painted diagonally-boarded timber partition which could be used to split the room into two halves; the lower part has been lost. Opposite the fireplaces is a timber coat rack with a wooden bench below. The office has a corner fireplace, dado-rail and fitted cupboards.