The New Room

The New Room is a chapel, built in 1739 and enlarged in 1748, located on Broadmead in Bristol. It is a building of group value, possibly designed by George Tully and restored in 1929 by Sir George Oatley. The exterior is roughcast with limestone dressings and a hipped pantile roof. It is constructed with an aisled hall plan and features a galleried interior lit by a central octagonal lantern. The building is of Mid Georgian style, with two storeys and a two-window range. The south front has a square-headed door with pronounced jambs and a key, a semicircular 10/10-pane sash window above, and two first-floor windows with segmental heads to 8/8-pane sashes. The north front features a central segmental-arched doorway beneath a segmental-arched window with 10/10-pane sashes, and three second-floor windows with 6/6-pane sashes.

The interior consists of four bays with Tuscan columns supporting panelled galleries that curve towards the south end window. A tall central octagonal lantern is lit by 10/10-pane sash windows on each side, and by 6/6-pane sashes to the upstairs rooms to the north and south. A northeast conference room is also present, and the first floor contains a central full-length dining room with Doric pilasters. Study rooms flank the dining room to the east and west, one containing a fireplace with an elliptical rubbed-brick arched surround and blue tiles.

Original fittings include a two-tier pulpit at the east end with a ramped handrail and railed area featuring column-on-vase balusters, box pews in the centre and at the front of the galleries, fixed benches along the sides, and the original communion table. A pipe organ by John Snetzler, originally built in 1761, was gifted in 1939. A poor box, dated 1755, is located on the north door. This was the first Methodist meeting room in the world and was bought by Wesley and Whitefield in 1739. Originally square and with an entrance from the north, it was extended with a further bay and an entrance from Broadmead. The limited site necessitated living accommodation above the meeting room, with the entire interior lit by the lantern.