Countess Of Huntingdon'S Chapel Including Chapel House

Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel including Chapel House

A former chapel and chapel house, now a museum, opened for service on 6th October 1765. Possibly designed by Thomas Warr Atwood for Selina, Countess of Huntingdon. Built in limestone ashlar with a slate roof and moulded stacks to each side.

The building comprises a Gothick-fronted two-storey chapel house with single-storey two-window wings to each side, and the former chapel behind, now museum. The ensemble is set back on a raised site from the street. The central block extends well forward with a wide canted bay to the centre, topped with a coped parapet with battlements over the bay. It has a returned cornice and lintel frieze to the first floor; the ground floor cornice continues and returns on the single-storey wings' parapets, which are castellated at the front. Windows feature flattened ogee arches and Gothick glazing: the centre has three-light windows with six/six-pane sashes flanked by two four/four-pane sashes, one to each side of the canted bay on both floors. The one-room wings have ogee-arched overlights with Gothick glazing to six/six-pane sash windows in moulded architraves flanked by triple colonnettes with ring mouldings to their shafts; the outer windows are blind with painted glazing bars. The rough ashlar plinth contains basement windows. To the rear of the right-hand wing are steps with a wrought iron handrail leading up to a stepped forward six-panel door, glazed to the top, with "CHAPEL HOUSE" carved into the lintel. Above is a first-floor six/six-pane sash window with returned parapet and cornice. The north-east corner of the chapel, part of the house, is three-storey with six/six-pane sash windows to the second and ground floors and a six/three-pane sash to the first floor, all with splayed reveals. The south-east corner also has a raised surround to a six/six-pane sash window to the second floor.

The interior contains an open-well, open-string staircase with turned balusters and swept mahogany handrail, and six-panel doors. The five-bay chapel to the rear is slightly wider with raised quoins, tall coped parapet and cornice, and tall semicircular-arched stone-mullioned three-light windows with interlacing tracery and hoodmoulds. Below the right-hand window of the left return is a four-flush-panel door under a flat hood. The lower two-storey wing to the rear of the left return has a coped parapet and cornice and two small square four-pane windows. A single-storey hip-roofed range to the front has a castellated parapet and cornice over paired double doors flanked by triple colonnettes similar to the front windows, with crown glass to Gothick-glazed ogee overlights. The door to the left leads to a lobby entrance with stairs to the chapel; the door to the right leads to a similar entrance to the former Sunday school. A similar wing to the rear right has two quatrefoil attic windows over a coved ground floor cornice. To its left are steps up to a six-panel door; to the right are four-panel double doors with a wreathed wrought iron rail to the centre. Similar colonnettes flank the doors.

The chapel interior is virtually intact, with a raised platform to the rear and a coved apse to the front above a window (to the rear of the chapel house) from which services could be observed. To each side are balconies on cast iron columns with cast iron balustrades, added probably in the early 19th century. A deep coved ceiling continues around the apse; a five-bay trussed roof sits above. The pulpit and lecterns are supported on artificial stone eagles of 1765. Late 19th-century seating was removed as part of the conversion to museum.

Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, was a prominent champion of Methodism. She built this chapel and adjoining house to protect residents and visitors from the evils of Bath society. The site was acquired in 1765. It became a preaching platform for George Whitfield (died 1770), the celebrated Calvinistic Methodist, who was her personal chaplain. Whitfield opened the chapel for her on 6th October 1765. She lived in the Chapel House from 1765 until her death in 1791 (marked by a Bath bronze plaque on the exterior). Horace Walpole described the "very neat" interior in a letter to John Chute of 10 October 1766. The gallery was added in 1783, increasing capacity to 750; it underwent further change in the early 19th century.

In later years the chapel housed the Trinity United Reformed Church. This merged with the Argyle Street Chapel in 1981. In 1983 the building passed to the Bath Preservation Trust and was renovated by Aaron Evans Associates. The Building of Bath Museum, established by the Bath Preservation Trust, was installed in 1992 with architects Michael Brawne and Associates. The chapel is one of the finest architectural expressions of mid-18th-century religious enthusiasm.