The Kirk Mission Hall, Gatepiers And Attached Boundary Wall

The Kirk Mission Hall, along with its gatepiers and attached boundary wall, is a non-conformist church, now redundant, dating from the mid-18th century, with alterations made in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is constructed from rubble sandstone, laid in courses, with ashlar dressings and roughcast rendering to all elevations. The roof is covered in Welsh slate with stone copings to the south-west gable.

The south-west elevation has two storeys and four bays. The two central bays are unfloored; the south-east bay contains the kirk gallery. The central bays feature tall, semi-circular arch-headed window openings with unmoulded imposts, keyblocks, and projecting cills. The north-east bay has a ground-floor doorway and a rectangular overlight, above a rectangular first-floor window. All openings are set within plain ashlar surrounds and are currently blocked by temporary shuttering. Visible from the interior, the window frames appear to have been sashes with margin glazing. The south-east end bay has stacked rectangular windows. The south-west gable features double doorways on each side, each door having three panels. A rectangular gallery window is located at the gable apex and is now blocked, with a flat-topped bellcote above, containing a single pointed arch-headed bell opening.

The interior has been altered, but retains a vestibule wall, single doorways to the meeting room, and a gallery supported by two tapered, octagonal columns. The gallery front features a cornice, a top rail above a field of rectangular panels, and a frieze with alternating Greek key and triglyph decoration below a lower cornice. A glazed moveable screen, made up of six-pane lights, is positioned above. Late 20th-century temporary partitioning is present at the lower levels. The north-west end includes 19th-century partitioning and a tiered platform with two parallel flights of steps flanking a winged reading desk with rectangular fielded panels, except for the three facets of the pulpit, which have curved upper panels. Original 18th-century rectangular panelling is visible to the right-hand side and on the rear wall of the tiered platform. A painted band with an inscription in Lombardic script runs along the wall head.

The Kirk was originally the church of Whitehaven’s Scots Presbyterians before becoming a Methodist house in the late 19th century. It was identified as 'High Meeting' in J. Howard’s survey of Whitehaven from 1790.

Plain gatepiers, square in plan with oversailing caps, support a rubble stone boundary wall with saddleback coping, which encloses a burial ground to the south-east of the Kirk.