Baptist Church And Attached Schoolroom At Rear

Baptist Church and Attached Schoolroom

This Baptist chapel was designed by Philip Sambell in 1836 and built on Clarence Street in Penzance. The schoolroom was added at the rear, probably in the mid-19th century, and the chapel itself underwent slight remodelling between 1898 and 1905.

The building is constructed with a stuccoed front featuring stucco detailing, while the remaining walls are built in local rubble with granite dressings. The roofs are covered in concrete tiles, with a brick stack at the right-hand end of the schoolroom.

The chapel has a rectangular aisle-less plan with a gallery on three sides. The original bowed apse now forms the party wall with the schoolroom. The exterior presents a symmetrical three-bay elevation on the road front, displaying fine Romanesque style detailing. The moulded gable resembles a pediment with recessed spandrels flanking a central bay containing a blind rose window. Above the rose window is a relief inscription reading "BAPTIST CHAPEL", with the date 1836 below. Beneath the rose window sits a two-light window under a carved hoodmould, featuring two orders of nook shafts and a similar central mullion. The flanking bays have spandrels with carved bracketed cornices and nook shafts positioned over carved friezes and arcaded cornices above triple lights with sidelights blind. A moulded sill string runs across the elevation.

The ground floor features carved hoodmoulds on an impost string and carved arches on nook shafts flanking a central doorway with paired three-panel doors. Single-light windows flank the doorway. Windows throughout retain margin panes. The side walls contain original tall round-arched sashes with spoked fanlight heads, except for one 20th-century copy, with rubble relieving arches beneath the sills. The schoolroom has a three-window range on its rear elevation, with original twelve-pane hornless sashes to the first floor.

The interior is of considerable architectural and historical importance, retaining most original features. The gallery features a moulded cornice and arcaded front carried on brackets with pendants, each bay punctuated by paired pilasters over paired brackets. The gallery beams are supported on slender columns with Romanesque capitals. The plaster ceiling has a moulded cornice and a central arcaded rose. At the original eastern ritual end stands the original Romanesque tripartite window, now blocked since the schoolroom's addition, featuring chevron detailing to the round arches and a painted inscription in the tympanum reading "ONE LORD, ONE FAITH, ONE BAPTISM" over the two central lights. The entrance area retains its original panelling, and the staircases have octagonal newels.

The fittings are particularly notable. There is a very fine and rare original arcaded rostrum with a bowed centre and flanking turned balustrades. Either side features a straight flight of stairs with stick balustrades flanking a large tiled bath with steps down to enable complete immersion for baptism. A communion rail stands in front, accompanied by five chairs, the central chair having arms. Original high-backed panelled benches with renewed graining survive at the back of the gallery. Twenty-century cinema-type seats occupy the original steps in front, while late 19th-century pitch-pine pews with shaped ends remain on the ground floor. A panelled and piped organ is positioned at the west end of the gallery.

This chapel represents an exciting early use of the Romanesque style by the deaf Truro architect Philip Sambell. Other notable chapels by him, also listed, are located in Union Place and River Street, Truro, and Wendron Street in Helston, similarly in the Romanesque style. This chapel is particularly fine, and the survival of good original internal features substantially enhances its interest. It has national historic significance as one of the first examples of a style which became very popular in the 1840s.