Welsleyan Methodist Church And Church Room

Wesleyan Methodist Church and Church Room, Ilminster

A Methodist church and church room dated 1887, located on West Street. Built in coursed limestone rubble with freestone dressings and a crested slate roof, the building displays vigorous Decorated Gothic Revival style.

The church facade is symmetrical with a forward-facing gable crowned by a crocketed finial and moulded corbelled kneelers. Buttresses flank the gable, and in its apex are three small pointed-arch louvres grouped under one dripmould. A string course divides this from a rose window flanked by and grouped with two three-light pointed-arch windows featuring geometrical tracery. A dripmould follows the contours of these three windows and continues horizontally at springer-level. The central gabled entrance breaks through the base of the windows, its upper part reflecting the design of the gable above. A pointed-arch moulding with a recessed trefoiled circle in the tympanum contains double doors under a shouldered arch.

Side wings gabled to east and west feature similar but smaller gabled entrances linked to the central entrance by lean-to sections with stone roofs. The left tympanum bears "A.D." and the right bears "1887". Each lean-to section contains a two-light mullioned window. A broached spire rises to the rear of the right-hand door, with a crocketed finial and small gabled niches on the diagonal facets near the top. Similar taller louvred niches appear near the base, with three-sided ones featuring crocketed finials at the corners of the base. The wall below the spire contains a lancet window with moulded pointed arch and colonnettes, and is offset with set-back buttresses. A door to the west fronts a hipped-roofed wing with a canted bay and lancet windows.

The side elevation contains five bays with segmental arches to mullioned and transomed windows. The Church Room to the west has a hipped slate roof and U-shaped plan. Two cross-gables front the left side: the left-hand gable has a circular window in the apex and two pointed-arch windows with hoodmoulds below, while the ground floor contains two-light windows with flat arches. A gable to the right has one similar three-light window with similar flat-arch ones below. To the right is a two-storey pointed-arch two-light window with stone mullions but without a dripmould. The entrance is through a lower wing to the right. All gable ends have terracotta scroll finials.

The interior remains virtually unchanged. A polychromatic tiled floor marks the entrance, with cast-iron columns supporting the gallery. Moulded corbels, flanked by smaller ones, support the roof trusses. Gothic-style pointed-arched panelling appears on almost all the woodwork, including the gallery-front, communion-rail, and the central pulpit at the south end with stairs to each side. Original pews occupy the nave, with repositioned ones in the gallery. Doors have chamfered arrisses to the panels and cross-joints to the architraves. The windows contain coloured glass.

The Church Room, said to occupy the site of the original church, was rebuilt in a similar style.