Sheppards Barton Baptist Church and School Rooms and Forecourt Area Railings and Gates and Gate Piers is a Grade II listed building in the Somerset local planning authority area, England. First listed on 23 April 2001. Baptist chapel, school rooms. 1 related planning application.

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

WRENN ID
half-wicket-owl
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
Somerset
Constituency
Frome and East Somerset MP: Anna Sabine (LD)
Country
England
Date first listed
23 April 2001
Type
Baptist chapel, school rooms
Address
Sheppards Barton Baptist Church and School Rooms and Forecourt Area Railings and Gates and Gate Piers, South Parade, Frome, BA11 1EJ
OS grid reference
ST 774 479
Coordinates
51.2302, -2.32484
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: sale history · related consents · flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Baptist chapel and school rooms at Sheppards Barton were built in 1850, with the school rooms added around 1860, designed by J. Davis. The building is constructed of coursed limestone with ashlar dressings, and has a slate hipped roof with a parapet at the front; the school rooms feature rusticated ashlar and red brick.

The chapel is of Italianate style and presents a two-storey, 1:3:1 bay facade to the southeast, with a parapet and cornice. The flanking bays are slightly advanced, and the central recess is supported by large console brackets. The ground floor features a three-bay arcaded entrance, with imposts extending to round-arch windows. The first floor has five double-recessed round-arch windows with moulded archivolts, keystones, continuous impost mouldings and balustrades to the cills, containing round-headed sash windows with arched glazing bars. The recessed porch has moulded fielded panel double doors with cornices in the side returns. The sides of the building display round-headed first floor windows and segmental ground floor windows.

A forecourt area is enclosed by railings, gates, and stone gate piers with arched panels and caps.

The school rooms, at the rear (northwest) facing Wine Street, have a pedimented gabled front. The ground floor is rusticated ashlar with arched recesses; a wide segmental arch at the centre contains three round-headed windows, while flanking recesses house doorways with moulded segmental-headed overlights, keyblocks, and panelled doors. The first floor is of red brick with stone pilasters, supported by moulded modillions above with a segmental arch in the gable and tripartite round-headed windows, the flanking bays with smaller round-headed windows; all are sash windows with margin glazing bars.

The chapel interior features a gallery on three sides supported on thin iron posts, though much of the front panelling has been removed. The interior also has dado panelling, formerly with seating and a rostrum, the latter of which was salvaged from an earlier chapel built in 1708. The auditorium ceiling is divided into compartments and includes a central skylight and an elliptical arch recess on the northwest side. Wall monuments from the former chapel are present, commemorating John Sheppard (1806), Thomas Bunn (1775), and the Rev Edward Cooper Daniell (1828). The first-floor school room has exposed arch-braced trusses resting on corbels.

Local climate

Sheppards Barton Baptist Church and School Rooms and Forecourt Area Railings and Gates and Gate Piers receives an average of 860 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 61% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 66% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 35 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 59% of listed buildings. Of these, 16 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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  • No EPC on record for this property
  • Sale history — 1 transaction since 2012
  • Related listed building consents — 1 application
  • Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
  • Flood risk assessment
  • Radon risk assessment
  • Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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