The New Room

BRISTOL

ST5973 BROADMEAD, Broadmead 901-1/40/481 (North side) 08/01/59 The New Room (Formerly Listed as: BROADMEAD Wesley's Chapel)

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Shown on OS map as John Wesley's Chapel. Chapel. 1739, enlarged 1748. Possibly by George Tully. Restored 1929 by Sir George Oatley. Roughcast with limestone dressings and hipped pantile roof. Aisled hall plan, with galleried interior lit by central octagonal lantern. Mid Georgian style. 2 storeys; 2-window range. The S front has a square-headed door with pronounced jambs and key, semicircular 10/10-pane sash window above, and 2 first-floor windows with segmental heads to 8/8-pane sashes. N front has a central segmental-arched doorway beneath a segmental-arched window with 10/10-pane sashes, and 3 second-floor windows with 6/6-pane sashes. INTERIOR: 4 bays with Tuscan columns, carrying panelled galleries to the sides which curve in to the S end window. A tall central octagonal lantern lit by 10/10-pane sash windows to each side, and with 6/6-pane sashes to upstairs rooms to N and S; NE conference room; first-floor has central full-length dining room with Doric pilasters and study rooms to E and W with fireplaces, one with an elliptical rubbed-brick arched surround and blue tiles. FITTINGS: a 2-tier pulpit at the E end with ramped handrail and railed area in front, with column-on-vase balusters, box pews to centre and fronts of galleries, fixed benches to sides, and original communion table; organ by John Snetzler, 1761, given 1939; poor box, 1755, on N door. HISTORICAL NOTE: the first Methodist meeting room in the world, bought by Wesley and Whitefield in 1739 and enlarged in 1748. Originally square and with an entrance from the N, it was extended by the addition of a further bay and an entrance from Broadmead. The restricted site required living accommodation to be placed over the Meeting Room, and the whole interior to be lit by the lantern. (Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 130; Sell: John Wesley's Chapel: Bristol; An Inventory of Nonconformist Chapels...in Central England: Stell C: Gloucestershire: London: 1986-: 65).

Listing NGR: ST5911373251