Capel Jerusalem

Capel Jerusalem

A large-scale, near-square plan chapel of fundamentally 1842 date, with stucco detailing and a large porch added between 1872 and 1875. The building is unpainted stucco with a hipped slate roof, designed in the Italianate palazzo style. It is 2 storeys tall with a 5-window front and 4-window sides. The exterior features quoin pilasters with facetted rustication, deep eaves on brackets with square panels between them. Windows are very large small-paned sashes set in moulded architraves with rope-mould detail and console brackets to flat cornices. The first floor front has five 30-pane sashes.

The ground floor has been substantially altered by the addition of a projecting three-bay porch with flat roofs. The porch centre is dominated by a monumental round arch between pilastered outer bays, the whole sitting beneath a full entablature with modillion cornice broken forward over the outer bays. The arch features a keystone and acanthus detail to the mouldings, with large moulded imposts above squat banded piers detailed with angle pilasters, caps and incised florets to the bands. The outer bays have panelled square bases to impost level, above which sit angle Corinthian pilasters framing a niche (with rope-mould detail) and small roundel. The lower wings are two-bay with blank channelled lower sections, moulded sill-courses, and two small arched lights with moulded arch and impost bands between 3 Corinthian pilasters carrying the entablature and cornice. The end walls are similar, each with one window. The porch interior features a panelled broad arched roof, panelled doors on each side, and a very large pilastered arched aedicule to the centre with a stained glass window, originally possibly a door. The interior has a slate floor and three broad front steps.

The sides are 4-window, 2-storey compositions with similar detailing, 24-pane sashes and a ground floor door in the bay nearest the front wall, set within pilasters and a blank arch.

Behind the main chapel is a very large hipped-roofed two-storey schoolroom and vestry block. Its rear 6-window range comprises 32-pane sashes above and 24-pane sashes below. Outside steps at the west end lead to a pilastered arched doorway between 2 sashes in similar surrounds.

The 1872–1875 remodelling was planned to resemble an amphitheatre, and the original square form is disguised entirely by a curved wall featuring nine 30-pane sash windows in the gallery, some of which take borrowed light. The pulpit wall has been altered, presumably in 1903–1905, to accommodate an organ loft. The gallery follows a U-plan layout supported on 11 plain iron columns, with the front of long grained panels under a continuous narrow band of pierced cast-iron. The amphitheatre plan ensures that both ground floor seats beneath the gallery and gallery seats are steeply raked. Within the open centre are curving pews, a half-round orchestra seat backing onto a deacons' seat enclosure of rebated rectangular plan, with seats facing and positioned side-on to the pulpit. Pierced wood panels form narrow bands throughout.

The pulpit is a monumental polished mahogany design, freestanding and curvaceous with polished brass rails to the steps on each side. It has a triple-curve front projecting over a curved base, the main half-oval front lavishly carved with a classical panel. It contains a long upholstered curved-ended seat within.

The organ loft behind, raised to gallery level, is a very fine Renaissance-style triple-arch composition. The centre features a monumental pilastered and corniced frame to an arched recess with lavish decoration to cornice, frieze, spandrels and capitals. The smaller pilasters carrying the main arch are echoed in two narrow flanking arches which lack corniced frames. Balustrades ornament the flanking arches, and a handsome timber projecting loft to the centre displays 5 carved panels, each featuring a main shell motif. The organ itself has painted pipes and classical detail to its case. The main organ has two curved pipe-clusters; those to the sides have one each, though the pipework in the left arch is dummy, screening access to the loft.

The ceiling is one of the finest interior features, expressing the circular concept of the design. It consists essentially of a very large saucer-domed main circle with a broad moulded surround and moulded ring to the centre rose, flanked by radiating panels with similar moulded ribs and small roses following the U-plan of the interior, leaving two spandrel panels to frame the rest of the circle. The ribs and mouldings feature ornate floral undercut detail. At the centre hangs a gilded vase-shaped pendant with an open funnel and exterior acanthus leaf decoration; the funnel is lined with mirror-glass. This may be the 'gas sunlight' by Stroude & Co of London described in the 1882 history. A pendant metal chandelier, likely later in date, now hangs here.

The schoolroom and vestry building contains one very large room on the upper floor with a hipped boarded ceiling. The ground floor is divided by pine partitions into one room across the north end and then 6 to the south—3 on each side of a spine corridor—with corner fireplaces throughout. These rooms are capable of being combined into one by means of sliding partitions.