Salem Independent Chapel

Salem Independent Chapel

This is an Independent chapel built in the late 18th century and substantially altered in the 19th century. The building is constructed of painted roughcast and stucco with a slate pyramid hipped roof that originally featured overhanging bracketed eaves, now cut back on the front wall. A damaged late 19th-century roof vent sits on the ridge.

The chapel has a rectangular plan with its entrance positioned on the short wall facing the street. The front elevation is two storeys tall with three windows arranged symmetrically above a raised plinth with quoins. The openings are arched with pilasters, moulded arches and keystones. The upper floor contains three windows, while the ground floor has two doors and a centre window, the doorheads set lower than the centre window head. The windows date from the later 19th century and feature 2-light and roundel tracery with painted glass roundels and coloured glass spandrels. The door fanlights have similar tracery. Both doors have long arched panels and are reached by two stone steps. Over each door is a framed plaque in an oval rectangular frame; the left reads "Salem Independent Chapel" and the right bears scrolled lettering with flourishes reading "1797, rebuilt and enlarged An. Dom. 1829".

The left side retains overhanging eaves with one pair of brackets remaining. The upper floor is slate-hung with two arched windows, while the rendered ground floor has one arched window. The right side is rendered with similar roofing and two sets of brackets. The upper windows have 20th-century glazing, while the lower window retains Georgian Gothic intersecting bars in the head, presumably representing the original window style throughout. Stone sills run along both sides.

The rear features a centre gabled organ loft addition with canted walling at the angles to the original chapel. This extension has large arched windows with Y-tracery, coloured glass margins and apex treatment to each opening.

The interior is entirely of later 19th-century character, presumably dating from the 1870s, with the organ loft and gallery being of early 20th-century date, possibly as late as 1937 (the date marked on the organ). The timber gallery front consists of long panels with panelled pilasters between them and curved angles both to the rear and front, where they form an alteration to link with the organ gallery. The organ gallery, probably circa 1937, has panelling below pierced square panels, three each side of a round-headed pulpit back with a pierced octofoil rose. A cornice below features raised brackets beneath pilasters. The gallery sits on nine iron columns. Painted grained pews are arranged in three blocks—double in the centre, with those to the sides facing inward and raked up to the side walls. A curved set of four pews with panels and a moulded rail accommodates additional seating. The pulpit platform has a panelled base with balusters above, curving back from a centre panelled book-rest to panelled newels with finials, then curving again to outer newels at the heads of curving stairs with similar balusters and newels.

Small corner timber lobbies under the gallery ends contain double doors with overlights featuring marginal glazing, and windows into the chapel also with marginal glazing. Stick balusters line the stairs leading up to the gallery, turning at right angles. Gallery seating comprises raked pews with shaped bench ends and large panels to the backs. The gallery ends have steps down to the organ loft. Large arched windows in the canted sides are framed with surrounds featuring horizontal fluting and rosettes, coloured glass margins and stained glass in the top pane above Y-tracery.

A large organ of 1937 by Conacher occupies the organ loft. Behind the chapel, a vestry is fitted with a 4-bay plastered ceiling.

The chapel's plaster walls are lit by 20th-century uPVC glazing to the side windows, which retain coloured glass roundels. The boarded ceiling dates from the later 19th century and features ribs outlining a border with square pierced panels at the corners. Ribs cross from the angles and centre of the long sides to a centre roundel framing a large and ornate plaster rose with a pierced centre pendant. Two smaller roundels with pierced roses complete the ceiling decoration. A moulded plaster cornice runs throughout.