Manvers Street Baptist Church

Manvers Street Baptist Church is an eclectic Gothic Revival building constructed between 1871 and 1872, with later additions in 1903, designed by Wilson and Willcox. The church is built from squared rock-faced Bath limestone with freestone dressings and features Welsh slate roofs.

The west front of the church has a double portal flanked by twin lancets above, with a circular window featuring cusping and a hood mould, topped by a gable cross. This façade is supported by buttresses with set-offs and includes a south aisle with a paired window below a single window. The north aisle is obscured by a three-stage tower that mirrors the window arrangement of the south aisle, transitioning to a circular top stage adorned with a continuous arcade of Moorish stilted horseshoe arches, capped by a corbel table and conical roof. The north elevation displays four bays of paired pointed lights separated by strip pilasters, with triple lights in the clerestory above.

Behind the church is the Institute, which has two storeys and an additional storey below due to the sloping ground towards the river. It uses similar materials to the church but has a much plainer and more austere character.

Inside, the church features a four-bay nave with a gallery on three sides and an organ chamber behind the preaching desk. The interior is supported by cast-iron columns arranged in two tiers, with pointed arches made of alternating red and yellow stonework. The roof has wooden ribs supporting a boarded ceiling, and the gallery has a fretted front, with the west end blocked off to create a meeting room. Below the church is a schoolroom with a ceiling supported by three rows of cast-iron columns, the outer two of which have decorative capitals. The Institute has very plain interiors.

Historically, the nave and aisles, along with the north-west tower and minister's house to the south, have been altered; the minister's house was demolished and replaced by a cafeteria, offices, and the Open House Centre in 1992. The schoolroom is located beneath the church, and the Institute was added behind the church in 1903. Drawings for this church are held in the British Architectural Library.