Horningsham Congregational Chapel

HORNINGSHAM CHAPEL STREET ST 84 SW (east side) 2/110 Horningsham Congregational Chapel 11.9.68

GV II*

Congregational chapel. Probably c1700, interior restorations 1754, 1816 and 1863. Random rubble stone with brick dressings, half- hipped thatched roof. Gable end to road. Single storey with internal gallery, 3 windows. Entrance to east gable end; double C19 doors in reveals, 20-pane segmental-headed sash over, Bath Sun fire insurance plaque over door. North side has three 2-light leaded casements and blocked doorway, 2-light leaded casements to three eyebrow dormers lighting gallery. South side has same windows and two buttresses with offsets. West end has two leaded cross windows with segmental-headed lights and cast-iron plaque with date 1566. Interior: gallery on three sides, supported on turned wooden columns, panelled front and pews probably of c1816. Early C19 pentagonal panelled pulpit on pedestal with reeded wooden panel with broken pediment behind, at west end. Circular clock over east end of gallery, row of wooden chapel hat pegs along north side of gallery. Pews in body of chapel late C19. Wooden tablet on north wall records ministers from 1791 to 1959. Arch-braced collar roof is plastered to form a segmental barrel vaulted ceiling, repaired in 1960s. The chapel is reputed to have been founded in 1566 for the Scottish Presbyterian workmen, employed on the building of Longleat House (q.v.), but no documentary evidence supports this and the present building is hardly earlier than c1700. (N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England; Wiltshire, 1975.)

Listing NGR: ST8120541136