Argyle Congregational Chapel

Argyle Congregational Chapel

Argyle Congregational Chapel on Argyle Street is a nonconformist chapel of substantial architectural significance, reflecting the religious history and stylistic development of Georgian and Victorian Bath.

The chapel was founded in 1782 following a dispute with the Countess of Huntingdon that led to a breakaway from an existing congregation. The original building was designed by Thomas Baldwin and opened on 4 October 1789. Constructed in Bath limestone ashlar to the front with coursed rubble to the rear and a Welsh slate roof, the chapel is set back slightly between Nos. 6 and 7 Argyle Street.

The Reverend William Jay became minister in 1791 and remained in post for 62 years, during which the congregation expanded significantly. As the congregation grew, the chapel underwent major alterations. In 1821 the young architect H.E. Goodridge was commissioned to enlarge and modernise the building, adding a new Greek Revival front influenced by Wilkins's Freemasons' Hall in York Street and extending the interior. Very little of Baldwin's original 18th-century fabric appears to survive these works.

The exterior presents a three-bay front with a one-to-one-to-one bay arrangement, the centre bay set slightly forward. The ground floor dates from Goodridge's 1823 work and features doorways in plain walling on either side of an unfluted Ionic portico in antis with two columns and flanking Doric pilasters. The portico contains a central tall double door (originally a window) in architrave surround, with return walls bearing similar doors. The doors themselves are ten-panel with recessed panels, set in pylon architraves with cornice heads on consoles, beneath a plain entablature. The first floor, lower in proportion and added by architects Hickes and Isaac in 1862, features arched windows with architrave heads and a continuous impost band flanking an attached Corinthian order—the outer windows square, the inner ones circular. Above runs a cornice with modillions over dentils, and a partly balustraded parapet. The west side elevation displays arched windows above segmental-headed ones, with a lunette in the north gable. Various 20th-century additions are present.

The 1862 alterations by Hickes and Isaac raised the front elevation, substantially compromising Goodridge's Greek Revival severity. The original composition had terminated with an attic storey and pediment above, and had been embellished with fine iron railings and an overthrow. T.B. Silcock undertook further repairs and reroofing in 1894.

The interior, not fully inspected during listing, measures 18 metres by 28 metres by 13.5 metres and was partly refitted in the late 19th century. A gallery runs around three sides, supported by cast iron columns. Beneath the chapel lies a stone-vaulted cellar with a late 18th-century wrought-iron gate at its north entrance; this space was originally intended for letting as storage. The chapel retains an early 19th-century pulpit that has been altered and lowered but preserves an arched front flanked by paired Ionic columns supporting a dentil cornice. A bronze monument to Reverend William Jay, commemorating his 62 years in the pulpit, dates from 1863. The jubilee celebrations of 1839 led to two granite memorial columns being introduced within.

Argyle Street, originally named Argyle Buildings, represents the extension of Adam's Pulteney Bridge line into Sir William Pulteney's Bathwick Estate. The estate passed to his daughter Henrietta Laura in 1792, though building work on the neighbouring Laura Place had already commenced in 1788.