Conway Road Methodist Church

Conway Road Methodist Church is a late 19th-century building constructed of rock-faced sandstone with pale ashlar, grey, yellow, and red brick dressings to the openings. It was built with a nave, Sunday school, projecting porch, and three-storey transeptal wings to form a cruciform plan, culminating in a polygonal apse. The church is designed in the Lombardic Romanesque style.

The main entrance is located on the south-east elevation, which is gabled and features a stepped triple arched window at the centre, flanked by buttresses with pinnacles. Further bays to either side have round-headed windows at the upper level and slightly cambered headed windows below. A long external staircase ascends to a splayed five-sided vestibule with a corbel table; the central facet is wider and gabled with a semicircular headed doorway. The east and west returns are each of four bays, punctuated by buttresses and featuring round-headed windows at the top level, slightly cambered headed windows at the intermediate level, and flat headed windows at ground level. A continuous corbel table runs around the church, and the roofs are otherwise plain, with an anthemion motif on the entrance gable. The transepts have one window returns and a gabled end with a stepped triple window over three arched windows; the apse is blind. Some of the grey bricks used as quoins and dressings in the original construction appear to be replacements, likely made from ash and cemented over, following a fire.

The auditorium is horseshoe-shaped and has been altered from its original appearance. An organ chamber was added after the original build, the roof was completely rebuilt with a new profile following a fire in 1915, and the under-gallery was partitioned off in 1968 to create a meeting room. The fire primarily affected the roof, causing water damage and debris fall below. The balcony and furnishings are largely from the 19th century. The massive balcony is supported by cast iron columns marked ‘W A Baker and Co Ltd Newport ironfounders’, along with unusual, large iron brackets cast in two parts. Decorative cast iron fronts the balcony and the organ balcony, with a mahogany rail to the ‘set fawr’ enclosure, and simple pine furnishings are present. A Romanesque style pulpit is also included. The roof is an elliptical ribbed plaster vault that does not replicate the original form. A fine organ, dating from 1920, is housed within an elliptical arch. The rear ranges and the schoolrooms beneath were undamaged by the fire and feature more plain iron columns.