United Reformed Church including vestry wing is a Grade II listed building in the Bridgend local planning authority area, Wales. First listed on 30 July 1997. Commercial building.
United Reformed Church including vestry wing
- WRENN ID
- crumbling-barrel-hawk
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Bridgend
- Country
- Wales
- Date first listed
- 30 July 1997
- Type
- Commercial building
- Source
- Cadw listing
Description
The United Reformed Church, including its vestry wing, was built in the late 19th century in a late Gothic style. It is constructed of coursed rock-faced sandstone with prominent ashlar dressings, yellow brick dressings to the left side, and a Welsh slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and an apex cross.
The main chapel is a two-storey single cell building with a small porch on the gable end facade. The first storey has a large four-light window with cusped tracery, hoodmoulds with foliage stops, and moulded patterned bases. Flanking this are two staircase bays created by pairs of buttresses with deep paired ashlar offsets and pinnacles, the outer ones higher and decorated with crockets. These contain single-light pointed arched staircase windows with cusped heads, hoodmoulds and coloured multipane glazing on each floor. The ground floor has stone steps leading to a gabled porch with a moulded pointed arched doorway, heavy foliage stops, piers, and large diagonal buttresses. This is flanked by two cusped headed lights with steeply gabled surrounds topped by large attached finials. Dedication stones under the windows are now illegible. A small forecourt is situated in front, bounded by iron railings and a small wall on the right.
The side elevation fronting Meadow Street features a six-window range of paired lights to each storey, each with a pointed and cusped head within a square headed, two-storey moulded surround with a shallow hood mould and angled sill. A prominent string course runs at plinth level, with ventilator grilles above. Attached to the main building is a rendered gabled vestry cross wing featuring a large triple arched window, shallow pilasters, and a separate entrance door. This connects to a further wing with a separate entrance from the left side of the main frontage.
Inside, the church has a raked rear gallery with a bowed decorative, painted cast iron front supported by two slender cast iron columns with foliage capitals. The roof features six bays with a boarded ceiling arched in five panels, each truss supported by corbels. The slightly raked ground floor is arranged in three blocks of numbered pews. An organ with painted pipes, by Peter Conacher of Huddersfield, is located in the front left corner. There is also a wooden pulpit, a small font, and a communion table. A plain panelled reredos commemorates John Thomas Rhys (1867-1938), founder and first pastor; the communion rail was moved in the 1970s but remains. Above the reredos is a mosaic on the theme of "Blessed are the Pure in Heart," set within stone canopywork and a decorative moulded stone surround with high crocketed finials. Figurative stained glass is found in the four-light window above the reredos, decorative glass is in the gallery window, and plain coloured rectangular quarries with single opening lights are in the side windows. The vestibule features patterned coloured glass. To the rear are a suite of rooms including a minister's room, meeting room, and vestry, all retaining original doors, surrounds, and boarded dados.
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