Wesley Chapel

This is a former Wesleyan chapel dating from the Victorian era, built in an Italianate or semi-classical style. The exterior is finished in unpainted stucco with decorative Bath stone dressings, and topped with a slate roof featuring coped gables and a small chimney at the west end.

The prominent three-bay east front is distinguished by a monumental Corinthian order, employing two inner columns and outer pilasters which support a full entablature and pediment. The entablature curves in a large semi-circle into the base of the pediment above the central bay. This central bay features a large arched window with a moulded arch and panelled pilasters, incorporating Italianate styling but with three-light Gothic tracery, roll mouldings, cusped heads to the lights, and three quatrefoils above. An ashlar sill course runs along the base. Below the window is a broad, moulded segmental arch supported by short, Gothic, corbelled side shafts, framing a recess containing a pair of arched doors with moulded arches resting on three channels piers, and ashlar roundels in fanlights. Console brackets are attached to the pilaster capitals beneath the fanlight lintels, above double panelled doors. The narrower side bays each contain an arched window on every floor, with ashlar dentilled string courses at the impost levels and moulded sill courses. A chamfered ashlar plinth runs along the base, with two console brackets positioned below the main entablature on each side. The windows feature moulded arches and a ‘Florentine’ ashlar tracery pattern of two lights and a roundel. A broad flight of eleven Forest of Dean stone steps, flanked by low side walls, leads to the front doors.

The stuccoed side elevations consist of five bays, with raised piers and an ashlar corbel table at the top of each bay. Channelled piers at the east corners return from the east front, incorporating an entablature block and cornice. Close eaves are present elsewhere. Ashlar arched windows punctuate the upper levels, with dentilled impost string courses and arched hoods. The windows incorporate 2-light and roundel tracery without moulding. Segmental stilted heads frame the windows below, with similar dentilled string courses and hoods, and 2-light cusped tracery. The east bay of the south side features a door with a stilted cambered head, hood, roll-moulded jambs, and double doors.

The basement has cambered-headed ashlar windows with three lights. The west end is rendered, containing a narrow, inset rear bay with two narrow, cambered-headed windows to the upper floor. Below, there is an upper floor, window and a door on the south side, and a window only on the north side.

Inside, the entrance lobby provides access to the chapel and the gallery stairs are located in the angles. The gallery stairs feature chamfered newels. A three-sided gallery is supported by ten substantial iron columns with leaf capitals and scrolls; the gallery fronts are missing. Corbelled supports are visible on the side walls, holding triangular trusses under the raked side galleries. The ceiling has deep coved sides and a central area divided by panelled plaster strips into two large squares, each with a central roundel linked by four ribs to the outer square. A broad, stilted cambered-headed organ arch, flanked by pilasters, is at the rear. The main window incorporates some late 19th-century stained glass, including floral roundels, patterned coloured glass, and a central panel depicting a multicolour-winged dove.