Sheppards Barton Baptist Church And School Rooms And Forecourt Area Railings And Gates And Gate Piers

FROME

1010/0/10012 SOUTH PARADE 23-APR-01 Sheppards Barton Baptist Church, Schoo l Rooms and forecourt area railings, g ates and gate-piers.

GV II

Baptist chapel and school rooms. 1850; by J. Davis; school rooms added circa 1860. Coursed limestone with ashlar dressings. Slate hipped roof with parapet at front; school rooms rusticated ashlar and red brick. PLAN: Square auditorium with gallery on three sides; entrance in recessed porch under gallery. School rooms added in about 1860 at rear, facing Wine Street. Italianate style. EXTERIOR: 2 storey 1:3:1 bay SE front with parapet and cornice, the flanking bays slightly advanced with cornice at first floor continuing across central recess; cornices supported on large console brackets in recess; rusticated quoins and rusticated ashlar at ground floor with 3-bay arcaded entrance with imposts carried through to flanking round-arch windows with rusticated voussoirs; five double-recessed round-arch windows on first floor with moulded archivolts, keystones, continuous impost mouldings and balustrades to cills; round-headed sashes with arched glazing bars; within the arcaded porch doorways in left and right returns have moulded fielded panel double doors with cornices. At sides round-headed first floor windows and segmental ground floor windows. Including forecourt area railings, gates and stone gate-piers and terminal piers with arched panels and caps. School rooms at rear [NW] facing Wine Street, with pedimental gabled front; ground floor rusticated ashlar with arched recesses, the centre wide segmental arch containing three round-headed windows and with tall narrow flanking round-headed recesses containing doorways with moulded segmental-headed overlights with keyblocks and with panelled doors, the top panels arched; first floor red brick red brick with stone pilasters, the three bays with moulded modillions above, the wider centre bay with segmental arch in gable and tripartite round-headed windows, the flanking bays with smaller round-headed windows; all round-headed sashes with margin glazing bars. INTERIOR: Gallery on three sides of auditorium on thin iron posts, most of its panelled front removed; dado panelling, seating and rostrum also taken out, the rostrum was re-used from the earlier, 1708, chapel; auditorium has ceiling divided into compartments with central skylight and with elliptical arch recess on NW side of auditorium. Wall monuments from former chapel, including those to John Sheppard [1806], Thomas Bunn [1775] and the Rev Edward Cooper Daniell [1828]. First floor school room has exposed arch-braced trusses on corbels. SOURCE: RCHME, Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting Houses in South West England, p175.

Listing NGR: ST7741747943