Kendal United Reformed Church

Kendal United Reformed Church

A church built in 1898 by architect Stephen Shaw, designed in the Early English style. The building is constructed of local limestone with sandstone dressings and Westmorland slate roofs. All windows feature leaded or coloured glass, and the interior woodwork is pitch pine.

The church is situated towards the rear of a long yard and comprises a rectangular nave with a semi-circular apse at the west end. The east end displays three gabled bays beneath a single pitched roof. The central bay is defined by stepped buttresses rising to full height with pinnacles and contains a wide projecting gabled main entrance. This entrance features a pointed arch with moulded soffit supported by buttresses and contains a semi-circular fanlight above six short lancets. Below are paired shoulder arched entrances with double wooden plank doors. To either side of the entrance are paired lancets, and above sits the main east window—a large pointed arch containing paired lancets and a multifoil with flanking lancets unified by a continuous hoodmould. Stepped lancets and a sill band feature above, and the gable apex is surmounted by a Celtic cross. Each end bay forms a stair turret with a single buttressed and pointed arched entrance containing a trefoil-headed doorway with wooden boarded door, with a large cross-window and sill band above. The buttressed north and south elevations are pierced by six round arched windows at nave and gallery level, each containing paired lancets in timber frames. The west end has a full height apse, partially obscured by flat roofed vestries, with two sets of paired lancets above and cinquefoil windows to either aisle.

Internally, the apsidal west end is defined by a pointed arch with plaster inner arch-ring and hoodmould. Its plainly painted walls are articulated by nine evenly spaced lancets with a plaster sill band at upper level. The apse contains a large organ, with pointed arched openings flanking it—each with six-panelled doors and plaster trefoil decoration above—leading to rear vestries featuring plain cornices and cast iron and wooden fireplaces, linked by a corridor with geometric tiles. A wide carved wooden pulpit with stairs to the rear and integral seating stands immediately in front of the organ, with a communion table positioned further forward. The nave is plainly painted above a wainscot and retains a full complement of wooden benches. The arch-braced roof springs from a timber arcade supported on clustered pillars of Burmese teak with stone bases, dividing the aisles from the nave. Aisle tie beams feature decorative timber tracery infill. Broad, curving and steeply raked galleries are set around three sides of the church with ornately carved fronts and supports and curving pews. Wooden and brass memorials to the Fallen of both World Wars are affixed to the west wall of the nave. A panelled vestibule at the east end and flanking side lobbies within the base of the stair turrets feature tiled geometric floors and wooden doors with cinquefoil coloured glass upper parts.

A long flight of stone steps leads up to the main church entrance, flanked by metal railings with a pair of iron lamp stands, and a raised stone-revetted flower bed stands to the right.