Balwest Methodist Church, Adjoining Courtyard Walls And Gate Piers

SW 52 NE GERMOE BALWEST

6/207 Balwest Methodist Church, adjoining courtyard walls and gate piers II

Methodist chapel. 1829. Slurried granite rubble with dressed granite quoins, jambstones, sills, voussoirs, lintels, pediment string and gable copings. Low- pitched grouted scantle slate roof with coped gable ends, the entrance front gable in the form of a simple triangular pediment. Cast iron ogee gutters. Plan: rectangular aisless plan with semi-circular-on-plan gallery on 3 sides, the ritual east end, west, and the entrance front facing approximately east. Later single storey room at the west end. Symmetrical 2 window east entrance front: round-headed central ground floor doorway, 2 original round-headed hornless sashes to light gallery above and all surmounted by a simple triangular pediment with central blind oculus (presumably for former date plaque). The doorway has double doors and fanlight, the windows have integral. fanlights. The round-headed arches have projecting granite keystones. The sides are 2-storey 2-window elevations with circa late C19 or C20 4-pane horned sashes in the original openings. Interior : is largely complete. The gallery has been reduced so that it now reaches only half way long each side but original panelling has been used to return the now canted ends. The gallery is now carried on 5 of the original Doric columns. There is a complex moulded cornice under the gallery front and the front has bead-mouldings with scalloped corners to the rectangular panels. At the east end of the chapel, and in the gallery over, the original box pews survive. The fine rostrum has a canted pulpit and a short flight of stairs at either side. There are 2 memorial windows with coloured glass in the west wall. This building is a good example of an early C19 Methodist chapel, restrained classical style with detail more domestic than ecclesiastical. Sources : 150th Church Anniversary leaflet. Nonconformist Chapels (manuscript) by Christopher Stell, R.C.H.M., to be published by HMSO.

Listing NGR: SW5960329964