Roche Wesleyan Methodist Church And Attached Schoolroom

Roche Wesleyan Methodist Church and Attached Schoolroom

This is a Wesleyan Methodist church built in 1835, with an attached schoolroom added in 1874. The building was significantly restored and refitted internally in 1877, at which time a dated stone was added. The 1877 alterations were carried out by John Paul of St Austell under the supervision of Silvanus Trevail and included the addition of a minister's room to the rear of the chapel and a connecting block to the schoolroom. Later alterations have been few.

Exterior

The church is constructed of squared granite rubble with granite dressings and has a slate roof with ridge coping tiles and gable ends. It is a two-storey building with a single auditorium plan, featuring an entrance at the front gable end and a rostrum to the rear with an organ chamber behind it.

The front gable end has a central round-arched doorway with a cast iron fanlight of three circles and dressed stone round arch, fitted with double six-panelled doors. To either side is a four-pane sash window with a round arch and similar foiled top glazing within a dressed stone round arch. A first floor cill band course runs across, with a central two-light round-arched window featuring granite foiled tracery to its top, flanked by similar four-pane sashes to right and left. Above this is a recessed circular datestone inscribed with the date 1877 and the words "Wesleyan...", with the remainder illegible. The front is topped with a moulded stone open pediment with corbels.

The left side has two four-pane sashes with cambered heads at ground floor level. At first floor, there are two plain round-arched four-pane sashes with dressed stone round arches. Set back to the left is a two-storey block containing the minister's room at ground floor and the organ chamber above. This block features a tall round-arched four-pane sash at upper level and a brick stack to its side. A single-storey brick addition exists at ground floor, with a rubble lean-to to the rear.

The right side has a four-pane sash with cambered head at ground floor, with a half-glazed door to its right. Two similar round-arched four-pane sashes are positioned at first floor level. The schoolroom is attached to the rear right as a single-storey structure, with a plain double door to the left and two paired twelve-pane sashes with brick heads and surrounds. A gable end brick stack stands to the right.

The rear of the church features two similar tall round-arched sashes at upper level with a gable end brick stack, while the ground floor has a single-storey rubble lean-to containing service rooms, fitted with four four-pane sashes. The rear of the schoolroom has a small single-storey flat-roofed twentieth-century addition, with two paired twelve-pane sashes as on the front.

Interior

The internal fittings are of high quality and remain intact. The roof spans six bays and features chamfered tie-beams and king posts rising to the collars, with curved braces supporting the tie-beams and upper braces to the collars. A wide segmental arch leads to the organ chamber, flanked by painted fluted Corinthian columns.

Galleries run along all four sides, accessed by two dog-leg stairs positioned one at each side at the front. An internal porch is formed by a panelled screen at the front entrance. The stairs have notched balusters. The gallery is supported on plain cast iron piers, which are marbled, and has a panelled front featuring blind round arches with key blocks, corbelled below and fitted with a moulded handrail. The gallery is ramped down to right and left behind the rostrum.

The wooden rostrum is similarly panelled and has straight stairs with notched stick balusters on each side. A matching communion rail is present. Pine pews with stencilled numbering furnish both the auditorium and gallery. In the gallery, the pews are raked to the right and left at the rear, positioned on either side of the organ.