King’s Church (former Congregational Chapel and Schoolroom)

Former Congregational Church and attached school room, opened March 1809, re-fronted 1865-1866 in the French Romanesque style, designed by J P Pritchett of York, currently (2023) a King’s Church.

MATERIALS: fair-faced polychrome brickwork including yellow stock bricks, ashlar dressing, cement rendered side and rear elevations, and the roofs are clad in Welsh slate with grey ridge tiles.

PLAN: rectangular-plan.

EXTERIOR: the chapel has a two-storey, three-bay main elevation raised on a chamfered and rendered stock brick plinth, and is defined by stock brick piers which project from the front gable, with an attached single-bay school room to the left. The tall gabled central bay is flanked to either side by a lean-to outer bay that forms the aisles. The ground floor is entered by a framed and ledged double door, to each of the outer bays, with elaborate wrought iron hinges, beneath a semi-circular polychrome brick arch supported on carved ashlar colonettes forming the jambs. The base of the colonettes are moulded and the impost stones have been carved to form decorative volutes with a moulded cornice. A stock brick band crosses the width of the building at impost level and forms a sill band beneath a central four-bay arcaded leaded window, which has semi-circular polychrome arches resting on ashlar colonettes. A string course is also formed by a stock brick band above the doors. The central bay is lit by a large plate tracery rose window, set within a circular polychrome brick surround with eight diamond-set leaded panels and an ashlar quatrefoil centre. This window is flanked to each side by foiled oculi windows in similar surrounds that light the aisles. The school room occupies the left-hand bay and has a three-bay arcaded window to the ground floor and a two-bay arcaded window to the first floor. A secondary two-light casement window with a segmental brick arch has been inserted at first-floor level, tight against the brick pier of the south aisle. The gabled roof of the chapel and the semi-hipped roof of the schoolroom have saw-tooth brick cornices with ashlar coping.