Hanbury Road Baptist Chapel and Schoolrooms, including gates and gatepiers

Hanbury Road Baptist Chapel and Schoolrooms

A gable-fronted chapel built on a sloping site with basement schoolrooms beneath. Constructed in the early 1900s in free Edwardian style, the building is faced in red brick with extensive grey Forest of Dean ashlar dressings and slate roofs with overhanging eaves.

The front elevation is arranged as a three-bay, two-storey composition with flanking twin projecting stair turrets that rise from square bases and transition to semi-octagonal forms. These turrets are topped with pinnacled hipped roofs and tall lead finials. The main section rises higher with a coped gable and ashlar flush outer angle piers topped with ball finials. Additional finials sit at mid-height above the main pilasters. The gable itself is marked by two flush ashlar bands with a plaque between them and an ornate vase finial at the apex.

The central bay is flanked by pilasters and carries a cornice inscribed 'Hanbury Road Baptist Chapel'. Below this sits a large three-light arched window with deep-chamfered rusticated flush jambs, moulded imposts and a moulded arch with keystone. The window features leaded glazing throughout, with camber-headed outer lights and a broader centre light with a slightly ogee head. A moulded timber course continues the imposts above, topped by a large fanlight with square-paned glazing.

The ground floor centre contains an impressive freely-styled ashlar composition featuring an arched central entrance with panelled doors and a deep fanlight (presently covered by a painted nameplate). This is flanked by two small arched windows whose heads sit slightly higher than the main arch. The entrance is framed by pilasters with a frieze above broken forward over the pilasters, featuring half-circle arcading over the side lights and fluting over the door. Half-round caps sit above the pilasters with a central steep pediment bearing an ornate cartouche and vase finial. A moulded cornice runs below the side windows, and ashlar below carries recessed inscribed panels.

The dado-level ashlar continues around the square bases of the turrets, each of which has a small window on its inner face and a fine panelled front door in an ashlar frame with consoled cornice and small pediment. The shaped parapet above features a half-round dip at the outer angles with corner ball finials. The half-octagonal upper storeys are lit by three small twelve-pane windows in flush ashlar surrounds with flush sill bands and eaves bands.

The front railings comprise tapering ashlar piers with cornices and steep pyramid caps, with scrolled cresting to the iron rails.

The rendered side walls are two storeys, reducing to four windows towards the rear, with flat-headed fenestration throughout.

The interior, dated to 1906, is impressive and ornate. A deep three-sided gallery with curved angles runs around the space, carried on painted columns with foliate capitals cast by Macfarlane & Co of Glasgow. A second range of columns rises from the gallery to support the roof trusses. The roof itself is three-sided with thin and complex mock-hammerbeam-type trusses incorporating arched-braces with open roundels in the spandrels.

The deeply raked gallery is edged with a projected timber cornice beneath a continuous bowed iron frontal, double-curved in profile. The lower curve is solid and fluted, while the upper part features very ornate pierced ironwork in a pattern of pointed arches infilled with complex anthemion-derived leaf scrolls.

Pitch pine pews, canted inward on the side ranks, face the pulpit. The pulpit itself is impressively tiered with an open-back great seat, a much-elevated pulpit platform approached by curved stairs on each side, panelled platform front with low balustrades projecting from the main pulpit. Behind stands a timber choir gallery with panelling beneath open panels fitted with dwarf balustrades. The gallery steps back to a very large organ set in a deep arched recess with a panelled front displaying five bays of pipes.

Arched entries to the rear spaces occur at both ground and gallery level on each side. The lower left entry features a stained glass window over six-panel doors made by G. Maile of Canterbury. Other unsigned windows, dating from after 1937, depict the Baptism of Christ. Ventilators in the side walls were made by Baker of Newport.

The three-sided ceiling is boarded on the sides and plastered above, with stencilled borders to the plaster panels. Ornate square ventilation panels with stencilled borders are also present. Coloured glass lights the entrance lobby.

Extensive accommodation extends to the rear of the building across three levels: a vestry behind the pulpit at the main floor level, a schoolroom below, and cellars beneath. The schoolroom features fine glazed folding doors, a coved ceiling and adjoining ancillary rooms.