Baptist Church Church Hall

ILFRACOMBE

SS5147 HIGH STREET 853-1/6/83 (South side) Baptist Church

GV II

Includes: Church Hall SPRINGFIELD ROAD. Baptist Church and Church Hall (originally the schoolroom). 1891 by WH Gould of Ilfracombe. MATERIALS: Church fronted with pinkish, squared Combe Martin stone with dressings of Bath stone; minor detail in polished red granite. Church Hall of rougher local stone rubble with dressings of limestone (much of it painted) at the front, and of red brick at the back. Asbestos slated roofs. PLAN: deep, narrow-fronted plan, apparently with side aisles. Church Hall abuts left-hand side, at rear end. EXTERIOR: Gabled 2-stage front in austere Perpendicular style, its most striking feature an octagonal limestone pinnacle at left-hand side. In centre of lower stage is a doorway approached by a flight of bowed steps; the doorway has a pointed arch springing from polished granite columns, the spandrels carved with foliage. At either side is a 2-light window with pointed arch, and above it a similar, taller window of 5 lights. Memorial stone dated 26 March 1891. Long ranges of wooden clerestorey windows in side walls, those on right-hand side with pointed arches. Church Hall is 6-windows-wide with Norman-style doorway, re-used from the former chapel, at right-hand end; above it is a round-arched window set under a gable. To left of doorway are 5 more tall, round-arched windows with 5 flat-headed windows above. Memorial stone dated 26 March 1891. INTERIORS not inspected, but in 1891 the Ilfracombe Gazette mentioned the marble baptistery in front of the preaching rostrum, and the organ by Messrs Vowles of Bristol. In 1937 Allen T Hussell commented on the open hammerbeam roof. (North Devon D.C. Planning Department: Book 2 (microfilm): Ilfracombe Local Board of Health Planning Register 6.1.1891; Planning File on microfilm (not checked); Ilfracombe Gazette, Arrival List and General Advertiser; Hussell AT: Ilfracombe Chronicle, 25.6.1937: 2).

Listing NGR: SS5178447570