Roscarrock Hill Methodist Church And Church Rooms Adjoining On Left

This is a Methodist chapel and adjoining church rooms, built in 1837 and 1867, located on Roscarrock Hill in Port Isaac. The original chapel, built in 1837, was later converted into schoolrooms when the second chapel was constructed next to it in 1867.

The older chapel is of stone rubble with a slate roof and hipped ends, originally featuring a ground floor used as a cellar with the chapel above. The front has three storeys and a symmetrical three-window arrangement. A central ground-floor entrance, originally leading to the cellar but now providing access to the church rooms, has modern glazed doors, flanked by two flights of stone steps. These steps meet above to form the entrance to the chapel’s first floor, which features double six-panel doors set within a round-arched opening and topped with a slate-hipped porch. The first and second floors have sash windows with Gothic glazing bars set within round brick arches, with a blocked oculus in the center above the entrance. A bellcote sits atop the structure.

The later chapel, also of stone rubble with a slate roof and hipped ends, presents a symmetrical five-window front, with three full-height openings at the center framed by round arches. The ground floor has brick segmental arches over openings and entrances on the left and right, each with double six-panel doors and fanlights above. First-floor windows are fitted with radiating glazing bars, also set within round brick arches.

The chapel’s interior features a gallery supported by cast iron columns with stylized capitals. The gallery has fielded panels and raked seating. While the ground floor arrangement has been altered, with a rostrum relocated from the north to the south end and original benches replaced with chairs, many original fittings remain.

The building’s western side is an important feature of the harbour landscape. Notably, this Methodist chapel possesses a bell, a feature unusual for chapels. The original Port Isaac chapel of 1800 had a belfry, and the 1837 chapel’s bell was replaced in 1862 with a ship’s bell taken from the ship Bencoolen, which was wrecked off the Bude coast.