Unity Church is a Grade II listed building in the Torbay local planning authority area, England. First listed on 3 May 1994. Church. 2 related planning applications.
Unity Church
- WRENN ID
- roaming-moulding-summer
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Torbay
- Constituency
- Torbay MP: Steve Darling (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 3 May 1994
- Type
- Church
- Address
- Unity Church, Montpellier Road, TQ1 1DL
- OS grid reference
- SX 919 635
- Coordinates
- 50.46224, -3.52311
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
Unity Church is a Unitarian church built in 1912, designed by Bridgman and Bridgman. It is constructed from snecked local grey limestone with freestone dressings and has slate roofs. The building consists of two sections, with an entrance to the southern section located below a tower that features a belfry. The entrance leads to a passageway, with a chapel to the right (south), while the northern section has its own entrance.
The church is designed in a Free Gothic style and is a single storey with a two-stage tower. The front facade has a 3:4:1 window arrangement. The southern block, on the right, is buttressed and features segmental-headed three-light windows with trefoil-headed lights. The lower stage of the tower has a segmental-headed doorway with a recessed two-leaf boarded door that has ornamental strap hinges. This doorway is flanked by buttresses that rise to freestone pinnacles at the top of the tower. The tower itself has an openwork parapet, a central pilaster strip, and two segmental-headed louvred belfry openings.
The left-hand block mirrors the right-hand block, featuring similar buttresses and three-light windows with cusped lights and square heads. There is a gabled porch block to the right with a coped gable and kneelers. The moulded doorway has a Tudor-arched head and a two-leaf boarded door with strap hinges, topped by a fanlight.
Inside, the church has four collar rafter roof trusses. The northern end features a preacher's gallery fronted with shafts in an Early English style. The church has been described by Pevsner as a "diminutive limestone cathedral for liberal Christianity."
Local climate
Unity Church receives an average of 870 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 64% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 83% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 11 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 90% of listed buildings. Of these, 4 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
Sign in or create a free account to unlock:
- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- Related listed building consents — 2 applications
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
Similar buildings
The closest matches to this building from all 493,000 UK listed buildings, by architecture, period and materials.
this building 1 similar nearby listed buildings