Guardian Court

Guardian Court is a United Reformed chapel, dating from 1868, and now converted into flats. It was designed by CF Hansom. The building is constructed of snecked limestone ashlar, with Pennant rubble and limestone dressings to the apse and south side, and has a slate roof. It has a cruciform plan, incorporating an apse and a chapel to the northwest. The style is Decorated Gothic Revival. The polygonal apse features two-light windows beneath a circular window and a parapet with pierced trefoils. The north transept has a steeply gabled elevation, incorporating a rose window composed of six hexafoils surrounding a central circle, with setback buttresses to pinnacles. The north elevation is six bays wide, with two-light windows beneath a drip, separated by deep buttresses with crocketed gables. The steeply pitched roof has decorative ridges and iron finials. The octagonal chapel to the west has two-light windows with cinquefoils, deep corner gargoyles below the parapet, and a steep roof with lead crockets. The west front is steeply gabled and flanked by a wide south buttress with a cinquefoil band at the base and a stepped north buttress rising to an octagonal pinnacle. Between these buttresses are three open arches with attached shafts and foliate capitals, fleurons to the mouldings, and linked hoods with stops of mythical beasts. Above is a zigzag strip, and a six-light Decorated window with blind trefoil panels at the base, and a pierced oculus with trefoils in the apex. The porch behind the arches has a polychromatic sexpartite vault with finely carved foliate bosses, three arched doorways (the northern one being blind), and arches at either end, each of two orders with foliate capitals and detached shafts. The tympana of the central and flanking arched doorways are carved with scenes of Christ teaching. The interior was not inspected, but previous records indicate a plain interior with a hammerbeam roof. A projected tower was never built.