15 Bridge Street, Saline

Louis Mercer,1844,built as Free Church in picturesque style of cottage/school architecture.Rectangular-plan hall-church with advanced bay centre in gabled street (south) elevation;altered,presently being converted to dwelling (1990).Coursed rubble,ashlar with raised margins;broad-eaved and low pitched slated roof.South gabled front:nave-and-aisle arrangement,main roof continuing over advanced centre.Timber-moulded mutule brackets at eaves and elaborately carved decorative bargeboarding at advanced ccentre,originally with scroll and fleur-de-lis motifs,timber finial and pendant with bosses at apex,and finely carved brackets with bosses at angles (4 projecting S and EW).All timberwork detailed with raised margins.Unfortunate wide slapping in centre has resulted in loss of original round-headed leaded-glass window (being reinstated,with roundel to be introduced above, 1990).Wide band course at springing point of window arch in advanced bay only.Pair of flanking doorways at aisles also in shallow raised margins with arched lintel detail (original doors 4-panelled with lugged mouldings).Finely moulded arch bellcote on moulded base and scrolls;weather vane at apex.Single stack over north gable (that matching on south lost) with tapering chimney-cans on double-cube bases.Pair axial ventilators also lost.Bipartites to plain 3-bay east and west elevations (splayed reveals on interior).Interior mostly gutted (1990):slim chamfered ?timber supports and collarbeam roof;wall rubble,stripped to bare.Access to basement originally via-lean-to attached at north (basement blind except for 2 sunk and boarded openings with chamfered dressings and stugged lintels at west).Rubble garden wall,and shouldered Tudor arched garden gateway (wide chamfered margins) to NW of church,presumably contemporary.