Congregational Chapel

ST 74 SW TRUDOXHILL CP Congregational chapel

6/142

11.3.68

GV II*

Meeting-house, converted from house. Dated 1699; converted 1717; C19 alterations. Coursed Doulting stone rubble with traces of rendering and dressed stone quoins. Clay plain tile roof, gabled to left with parapet and hipped to right. PLAN : Narrow rectangular plan with entrance under gallery at the east end and lean-to staircase wing and later vestry project at east end of south [rear]side. When converted from house to meeting-house in 1717, floors, ceilings and partitions were removed and a gallery was built at the east end; in 1898 a schoolroom was built at the west end, replacing what appears, in an 1850 drawing of the meeting-house, to be a stable. EXTERIOR: 2-storey facade [internally single storey]. 4-bay north front, the left bay slightly splayed back following curve of the road; small 2-light ovolo-moulded stone mullion windows with leaded panes, top panes Gothic; moulded stone string-course above ground floor windows; datestone between centre two first floor windows with raised lettering -'N.R.A.1699' [Robert and Ann Newport]. Single-storey schoolroom on right with 4-pane sash and panelled double-doors with overlight and dressed stone surrounds. Left [east] return with moulded stone doorway with flush-panelled door, 12-pane sash above and outshut on left with small single-light moulded stone window and integral stack. INTERIOR: Open to the roof and with plastered walls; roof ceiled in 1776, but principal rafters exposed. Gallery at east end supported on iron post, its front with three large bolection-moulded panels separated by pilasters. Gallery stairs with splat balusters and square newels. Early C18 panelled pulpit at west end also with splat balustrade to stairs. Complete set of box-pews installed in 1847; gallery seating after 1853. NOTE: The building was built in 1699 by Robert Newport as a private house. The Presbyterian society, formed in the C17, converted the house in 1717 to a meeting-house. SOURCES: [1] RCHME, An Inventory of Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting-houses in South-West England, pp.197 and 198. [2] McGarvie, M., Notes on the Congregational Chapel, Trudoxhi1l.

Listing NGR: ST7492143784