Former Methodist Chapel To Rear Of No 29 Town Club

The former Methodist Chapel, located to the rear of No 29 Town Club on Market Street, dates back to the 18th century, with a mid to late 19th-century ashlar frontage. The building stands two storeys high, plus attics, featuring a moulded stringcourse above the ground floor, a moulded cornice, and a low parapet. It has a modern pantiled mansard roof with two hipped dormers and wood-framed casements with glazing bars. The first floor has four sash windows set in chamfered reveals without glazing bars.

The ground floor showcases an arcade of three semi-circular arches supported by pilasters, each with keystones. The right-hand arch contains double doors leading to a side passage, with wooden doors featuring two panels each and a semi-circular fanlight above. The remaining arches enclose fixed-light plate-glass windows. To the left of the frontage is a square-headed doorway with a moulded architrave surround and a flat moulded cornice on stone brackets, featuring an oblong fanlight and a half-glazed door.

Accessed via the passageway to the right of the house is a long elevation facing south, which belongs to the former Methodist Chapel founded around 1756. This section has three storeys that reduce to two as it ascends the hill, constructed of coursed rubble with three hipped pantiled roofs. It features a mix of casement and sash windows, including a Venetian window on the north side at the rear, which has an ashlar surround, a keystone to the central light, and thick fixed glazing bars.

Inside, there is an 18th-century staircase leading to the former chapel, featuring plain turned balusters and a ramped handrail. The gallery within the chapel is supported by plain piers with chamfered corners and has a dentil frieze on the gallery front. Doric columns rise from the gallery to the ceiling, with balustrades between the columns and square panels of wrought-iron scrollwork with wooden handrails. The chapel has close historical associations with John Wesley.

The building is part of a group with Nos 5 to 8 and the boundary wall at Priory Lodge, as well as Nos 10 to 35, and the elevated pavement in front of No 21.