United Reformed Church, Including Schoolrooms, Front Wall And Gates

The United Reformed Church, together with its schoolrooms, front wall and gates, was originally built as a Congregational chapel in 1843-45, with restoration and alterations undertaken in 1872 and 1908. The schoolrooms were likely added in the mid to late 19th century. The church is constructed of stone rubble, with the front of the chapel and the upper storey of the schoolrooms rendered. It has slate roofs, the schoolrooms having a hipped roof to the front. The chapel is positioned at a right angle to the street, with a front lobby flanked by staircases. Inside, there are original or near-original galleries on three sides, later extended behind the pulpit. A recess containing the organ was likely added in 1908. The schoolrooms, set forward to the right and linked to the chapel by a lobby, are two-storied and built on a high, battered plinth, decorated with a single course of red bricks. The front of the schoolrooms has three close-set pointed-arched windows on each storey, with the ground floor windows featuring alternating red and cream brick arches. A single matching window is on the left side wall of the ground storey. Stone sill bands run along the ground storey and just above window heads. The building stands on a raised terrace, with a small, raised garden in front. A rendered retaining wall topped with an iron railing, replaced after World War II, runs along the street frontage. Two square gate piers with elaborately scrolled iron gates, likely original, are positioned centrally, with matching piers at each end of the frontage and an intermediate pier to the right of the gates. Originally, a further railing existed at the rear of the garden. The interior features galleries supported by quatrefoil-section iron columns, with gallery fronts panelled with diagonal planking and scrolled iron brackets on the handrail. The pointed-arched side windows do not account for the galleries. In the upper end of the chapel on either side are two windows, now painted over, with small-paned glazing and pointed, intersecting arched heads. The panelled pulpit has open quatrefoils at the top, with patterned iron railings on the steps leading up to it on either side. The organ recess has a pointed arch in alternating red and yellow brick. The roof is supported by tie-beam trusses, infilled with arcades of 4-centred arches. The schoolrooms have a plain interior with a row of simple iron columns down the centre of the ground storey.