West Cliff Baptist Church

A Baptist church, school, and hall was built in 1891. It is located on Poole Road, Westbourne, Bournemouth. The building is constructed of red brick with stone window tracery and has tiled gabled roofs. The church is aligned north-south and has three aisles, with a gallery over the north entrance and an organ chamber and rostrum at the south end. There were provisions for galleries in the aisles, but these were not constructed. A linking range connects the church to a large hall or schoolroom that runs north-south. The building is designed in the Perpendicular style.

The north front of the church has a large six-light, four-centred arch window above the doorway, with a traceried square panel in the gable above. There are moulded strings and buttresses, and four-centred arch doorways and staggered windows in the flanking lean-to bays. The linking range has small triple four-centred arch windows and small gables. The hall’s gable end has a pair of ground floor windows and triple windows above, with brick hood moulds and flanking buttresses. The hall features a wooden clerestory and an apsidal south end. The church has three cross-gables over the aisles, the central gable being larger, each with three or five-light four-centred arch windows with brick ribbed panels above. The corners of the chancel are splayed, with tall integral stacks featuring diagonal shafts. A squat brick bellcote sits over the west end of the nave; the spire is missing.

Inside, the interior is in fine, intact condition. There are timber three-bay arcades, the central bay being wider, with four-centred arches and pierced traceried spandrels. The nave is wide and features a seven-bay arch-braced timber roof. Moulded brick two-centred arches define the chancel and west gallery. The walls are plastered with brick strings and arcading above the chancel arch. The chancel incorporates a galleried organ chamber, and the west gallery has a panelled front. Original furniture, including benches, is present, and there is stained glass in the east windows. The hall or schoolroom has low wooden arcades, a clerestory, and an unusual scissor-brace style roof.