Former Unitarian Church

This is a former Unitarian church, dating to 1795, with alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries. The church was designed by John Palmer, with an apse added and the interior modified in 1860 by WJ Green of London. It is constructed of limestone ashlar with a slate roof.

The building’s plan is rectangular, entered on its long side from Barton Street, and adjoins other buildings to the right and rear (along Trim Street). It has a high hipped roof with a central metal ventilator. The long front façade has two storeys and five bays. The upper level features large arched windows with radial bars in moulded architraves. The lower level has rectangular windows with 20th-century lighting fixtures, also in moulded architraves, and a pair of 20th-century doors to the right, set within a Doric pilaster doorcase with an entablature and blocking. The lower level is rusticated with square joints, and the windows rise from a plain plinth. A deep plinth band sits on a moulded cornice, and the upper level is articulated by flat Doric pilasters, paired at each end, with a triglyph frieze, a cornice, a blocking course, and a parapet. This returns to the north end (originally the liturgical east). The central bay of the north end is flat with a pediment, flanked by plain quadrants to the returns of the main hall, with paired pilasters. The central bay of the ground floor has a wide doorway with 20th-century doors in a plain surround, with quadrants returning to each side, a blocking course, and a parapet. The centre bay is further emphasised with rusticated pilasters, a plain pediment pierced by a series of square holes.

The interior appears to have been substantially altered and was not inspected during the listing process.

The congregation was founded in 1688, originally meeting in a chapel built in Frog Lane in 1692. Samuel Taylor Coleridge preached in the present chapel in 1796. The 1860 alterations involved adding the apse and remodelling the interior. The building was converted to secular use as a pub in 1971. It is a substantial building of finely executed ashlar, maintaining historical interest despite its change of use.