Former Falmouth Central Methodist Church

Former Wesleyan Methodist Chapel

This former Methodist chapel was built between 1874 and 1876 to designs by James Hicks, with alterations made in 1888 and 1894. Following bomb damage during the Second World War, the exterior was substantially altered and the interior entirely rebuilt in 1956 by Geoffrey B Drewitt.

Materials and Construction

The principal (west) elevation is constructed of squared killas slate stone brought to courses, with Bath stone and granite dressings. The other elevations are of random killas with red brick dressings and granite quoins. The roof is covered with Delabole slate.

Exterior

The chapel is designed in a free Italian Romanesque style and is rectangular in plan. The two-storey principal front comprises three bays, with a taller central entrance bay featuring a gable decorated with a Lombard frieze.

At ground floor level, the central bay contains a mid-20th-century hipped porch with a tripartite doorway flanked by slender columns and responds, fitted with glazed and panelled doors and fanlights. Above this is a very large central window with a spoked fanlight head containing round lights between the spokes, with three lights below divided by pilasters with mullions and transoms to the left and right, and a further three lights below with mullions. This window is framed by two large pilaster columns, and the first floor of the bay is framed by tapering pilasters with Corinthian capitals linked to an impost band.

The flanking bays have paired mullion and transom windows with recessed horseshoe-arch heads at ground floor level, with two-light arched-head mullion and transom windows above featuring round tracery within a round arch. A dentilled cornice and flat parapet crown these bays, which are framed by pilasters on the first floor rising to an impost band with indented roundels.

Along the ground floor of the front elevation are several commemorative stones: foundation and memorial stones laid on 30 July 1874; two memorial stones laid on 22 November 1887; and a stone commemorating the bombing, restoration, and reopening in March 1956.

The front elevation returns on the south side feature a single identical first-floor window; on the north side the elevation is blind and partially obscured by the neighbouring building. The north and south elevations are set back and each comprises four bays of paired arch-head windows with red brick dressings and granite cills. The pitched roof is fitted with two conical ventilators and is hipped at the east end. An additional lower pitched roof covers a further bay at the rear (east) of the building, with a 20th-century red-brick stack. The east elevation is blind, being built almost against the cliff-face behind.

Interior

The interior was entirely rebuilt in the 1950s. Entry is via a three-bay rectangular entrance hall with arched openings to staircases on the north and south, and to the east two part-glazed double-doors with kickplates and surviving brass door-furniture. Each door has a two-light transom above and a three-light internal window to the right. A pull-down screen is fitted to the southern bay. The ceiling has boxed steel beams and the floor is laid with linoleum.

The left-hand double door leads to a chapel containing several memorial plaques, including one to Reverend Walter Pascoe Johns, who oversaw the building of the 19th-century chapel (died 1886), and another to Reverend M Wyche Mountford (died 1915). The right-hand double door opens to a corridor with a linoleum floor, rows of brass coat-hooks, and borrowed lights to adjacent rooms. To the south, double doors below a two-light transom lead to a three-bay room with jib-piers in the eastern bay. At the north-east corner are four fitted cupboards with flush doors and bronze door furniture. Further along the corridor is a room on the north side. Two steps at the end of the corridor lead to ancillary rooms at the east end, added in the 1950s. A 1950s lift is located within the southern staircase hall.

Cantilever staircases to the north and south at the front lead to the top floor. These are of concrete construction with a steel Festival-style geometric balustrade and timber handrails. From the first-floor landings, double doors on either side lead into a large hall with a contemporary stage at the east end and a linoleum floor. Slim steel columns support boxed steel-joists forming the ceiling. At the west end of this hall is a smaller hall, accessed from the northern landing, with a raked ceiling reflecting the level above and a linoleum floor.

The former church on the second floor is accessed through double-doors from each landing. The hall is three bays wide with a central elliptical-arch vaulted bay, and four bays long defined by simple ribs springing from tapered Doric pilasters, with a deep cornice. At the west end is a raked gallery with pitch-pine pews and linoleum floor coverings. The west window, by John Hall & Sons Ltd, depicts the Light of the World in its central light, flanked by figures from Methodism: John and Charles Wesley; Hugh Bourne and William Clowes, pioneers of Primitive Methodism; William O'Bryan, originator of the Bible Christians (later United Methodists); and Billy Bray, the Cornish evangelist. To the east, beyond an elliptical arch springing from pilasters with Corinthian capitals, is a further raked gallery with pews. The rostrum, located in front of the eastern gallery, has simple 20th-century fittings. Flanking the eastern arch are two war memorial plaques; the Second World War commemoration includes those lost in the bombing on 9 October 1940. An organ is located at the north-east corner of the nave.

At the west end of the north and south walls, paired windows contain stained glass. Those to the south are memorial windows by Abbott & Co, and those to the north honour sailors, featuring a representation of a Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeboat, and those who served in the Sunday school.

Windows on the north and south elevations are paired in each bay with glazing bars and margin lights; the arched upper sections are horizontally-hung. The windows on the front elevation are of obscured glass with rectangular leaded lights. In several spaces the walls are lined with acoustic panels.