Wesley Memorial Church

901-1/0/10114 08-JUN-01

BRYANTS HILL Wesley Memorial Church

II

Wesley Memorial Church, Bryants Hill, Bristol. 1906-07 by W. Hugill Dinsley. Pennant stone rough-hewn masonry with Bath stone dressings, slate roof. Cruciform plan with spire-topped tower to right of north entrance front. Parish rooms to rear, or south. Entrance front consists of a gabled nave front with crocketed finial over a large two-register, four-light traceried window bearing the inscription WESLEY MEMORIAL CHURCH AD 1907 around the outer surround. Flanking buttresses, gabled entrance porches beneath four-light windows. Three-stage tower with angle buttresses, slatted belfry openings, clock faces beneath gables to three sides, corner pinnacles and an octagonal spire. Side elevations three two-light windows wide, separated with buttresses; square lantern to roof ridge; gabled transepts with three arched windows, the central of three lights, the outer of two, beneath slatted rectangular vents and crocketed finials. Polygonal (liturgical)east end apse with paired arch windows to side walls; lower two storey minister's and parish rooms to sides with rectangular mullioned windows. Adjoining 1920s church hall and 1960s parish room of secondary interest. INTERIOR: aisleless nave with transepts, central pulpit with organ and choir gallery behind. Open hammberbeam roof. Glazed-in entrance lobbies to east and west of north end. Sixteen rows of pitch pine pews with enamel number plaques, raked to sides and transepts to face towards central pulpit. Pulpit with arcaded frontal behind communion rails, reached via twin stairs. Moulded arched opening to south (liturgical east) end carried on carved consoles. Cast iron open screen with foliate trefoil decoration to choir gallery, containing a large organ by Vowles and Sons of Bristol. High quality stained glass by Joseph Bell and Sons of Bristol depicting the ministries of John Wesley (west transept), of Charles Wesley (east transept) and allegorical subjects (north window). Cast iron Gothic stair rails lead to organ loft, below which is the former parish room; minister's room to south-east. An imposing Edwardian Gothic Wesleyan church, retaining its original fittings and lay-out.

Listing NGR: ST6361072834