Broadmead Baptist Church

Broadmead Baptist Church

A Baptist church with ancillary accommodation, built between 1967 and 1969, designed in Brutalist style by Ronald H Sims of the Bournemouth practice Geens, Cross and Sims.

The building is constructed as a reinforced concrete frame with a rectangular footprint running roughly north to south along Union Street. The principal front elevation is clad in in-situ reinforced concrete panels with a bush-hammered and ribbed surface. The rear elevation is faced in sand-faced Fletton brickwork laid in stretcher bond, with soldier course sills and concrete lintels. GRP cladding has been applied to roof fascias, and the building is fitted with Profilit constructional glazing and other metal-framed windows.

The three-storey frontage to Union Street expresses the structural concrete frame through bay divisions marked by exposed and projecting vertical uprights, glazing arrangements and roofline details. The off-centre entrance bay, containing the main doors and marking the division between the church to the south and ancillary accommodation to the north, is distinguished by two pairs of concrete fins that bracket timber posts remaining from an original fleece or spire that once rose above the roofline. The entrance is sheltered by a canopy resting on projecting beam ends, now clad in 21st-century timber; the original canopy continuation across the rest of the elevation has been removed. Ground floor shop fronts flanking the entrance are modern replacements. A continuous band of Profilit glazing runs across the first floor with narrow vertical panes, lighting the church ground level and hall, recessed above the entrance to light the staircase. The top storey comprises in-situ concrete panels with vertical ribbed bush-hammered finish; these are blank on the church side (forming the gallery back wall) but interrupted by windows serving the northern meeting rooms. The church has a clerestory beneath shallow V-section roof beams, whose ends project as a series of bold stepped canopies above each bay. The northern portion of the building presents a more restrained arrangement with flat canopies above the three main bays.

The interior experience was conceived as a progression from darkness to light, beginning with the street entrance. The lobby has walls of mottled brown brick with raked joints and quarry tile flooring, leading to white spray-plastered walls and glazing on the upper floors. Timber is used throughout for screens, doors and cladding.

Within the lobby, a curved wall meeting a detached lift tower set at 45 degrees counters the grid geometry, whilst splayed stair treads and a canted recess with bench and stepped brickwork provide additional geometric interest. A short stair to the rear accesses the Undercroft, a mezzanine-level extension added in the 1970s within the main structural frame, originally intended by Sims as a location for a future chapel. This room has a glazed screen wall and narrow horizontal eastern-facing windows.

The main open well staircase has treads faced in white terrazzo and a balustrade of tubular steel with applied oak panels and a thick rope handrail. Wide landings on the first and second floors serve for circulation and informal seating, with access to adjoining spaces. The ceilings feature deeply coffered grids set on the diagonal; original lights within the coffers have been replaced by suspended spotlights. Historic plaques and tablets are mounted on first floor walls.

The church occupies the southern section of the first floor, separated from the circulation space by a glazed screen wall. It is rectangular with the liturgical focus on the east wall, which recedes in steps and curves to a central baptismal pool set within a dais. A pulpit is positioned to the left. Angled steps rise to the dais, echoing its geometric composition. Above the pool stands a screen known as the 'Cloud of Witnesses' (referencing Hebrews 12:1), comprising angled and curved fabric panels lined with vertical timber slats that rise in stages from above the baptismal pool, widen to form a backdrop to the pulpit, and continue along the west and north walls before turning the corner. The screen projects with a break forming an open shaft above the pool where a wide timber cross is mounted. North and west galleries have angled fronts with tubular steel handrails. The space below the west gallery receives light from the exterior Profilit glazing. Gallery supports comprise piers with cantilevered beams; on the west side, the same piers carry columns supporting transverse roof beams. These V-shaped beams step up and down, clad in boarding and linked by transverse glazing strips. The main floor is furnished with chairs; upholstered timber pews are installed beneath the west gallery and in the gallery tiers. Roof-mounted spotlights are no longer functional and have been supplemented by suspended strip lighting. Four 19th-century stained glass panels are mounted before the glazing beneath the west gallery.

The large first floor hall to the north has glazed double doors within a larger glazed opening, Profilit glazing along the full length of the east wall with transom glazing above, and a deeply coffered grid ceiling. Offices to the rear are accessed through veneered hollow timber doors with built-in cupboards and matchboarded ceilings.

The second floor contains a large meeting room with kitchen, a series of smaller meeting rooms and a former vestry. The caretaker's flat, contained within a fourth storey, is accessed from the east by a stair with a balustrade similar in design to the main staircase.

The shop units on the ground floor and their linked internal accommodation on the first and second floors extending into 90–94 Broadmead are excluded from the listing as they are not considered of special architectural or historic interest.