NHER 34728 (Building record) - Methodist Church, London Street

January 1973. Listed Grade II.
Listing description excerpt:
"Wesleyan chapel, now Methodist church. 1813. Gault-brick facade, rendered returns and slate roof.
EXTERIOR: Two-storey elevation in three bays. Each bay separated by panelled giant pilasters...Centre bay at ground floor with four Roman Doric columns rising to plain cornice and forming a recessed porch...Red brick eaves cornice carrying four stone obelisks on parapet. Pediment over centre bay. Hipped roof.
INTERIOR: panelled west gallery on three cast-iron columns reached by two stick-baluster staircases. Suspended 20th-century timber ceiling."
Information from (S1).
Please consult the National Heritage List for England (S1) for the current details.
Exterior seen by E. Rose (NLA), 1999.
This is an important survival of an early Classical Wesleyan chapel.
Compiled by E. Rose (NLA), 3 November 1999. Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 11 March 2021.

This chapel was built by Robert Goodrick and registered in July 1813. It was re-fronted in 1875.
See (S2) for further details.
M. Langham-Lopez (HES), 29 November 2012.

It is recorded in (S3) that the chapel was closed in 1845 to allow for various alterations, including the addition of a vestry. It was also extended in 1876, when a school room was added to the rear (now known as the ‘rear hall’). It was subsequently re-fenestrated with sash windows around the turn of the 20th century. The school room is much altered, having been both re-roofed and re-fenestrated.
Information from (S4).
P. Watkins (HES) , 11 March 2021.

June-July 2018. Watching Brief.
Monitoring of minor groundworks associated with installation of new, solid floor and underfloor heating pipes.
The observations made during this work have provided significant additional information on the development and use of the chapel.
Although it has been suggested that the chapel was re-fronted in 1875 there is apparently no documentary or physical evidence for this and it is noted that the architectural style of the façade is entirely consistent with an early 18th-century construction date.
The internal layout of the chapel prior to these works dated to a modernisation of 1876, with the Victorian benches and the pulpit built on three raised pew platforms. A gallery at the western end of the chapel represents one of the few surviving original features. A photographic record of the chapel’s interior was made prior to it being stripped out as part of these works.
Removal of the floorboards exposed timber joists rested on low, brick-built sleeper walls. These had in turn been constructed on an imported layer of compact ‘dirty’ green clay. As only limited excavation was required the works generally only disturbed deposits associated with the construction and use of the chapel. A thin spread of debris beneath the compact clay floor lay directly on geological silty clay, suggesting that ground levels had been significantly truncated during the construction of the chapel. This dark grey organic silt had a high charcoal/ash content and produced animal bone, oyster shell and a single (presumably residual) sherd of medieval pottery.
The most significant discovery was the remains of an original back (east) wall, which demonstrated the chapel had had a square plan when first constructed in 1813 - being extended to its current, more rectangular form at a later date. Significant repairs had been made to this wall, possibly to combat subsidence. The trench dug to facilitate these repairs had been backfilled with rubble and was found to contain a number of 18th-century pottery sherds. A large pit midway along the line of the wall had probably been dug as the wall footings were being grubbed out and may indicate the location of a lost architectural feature such as a fireplace or pulpit. Other original features exposed included an alcove in the south wall that matched a similar, still visible feature in the opposite wall. A series of evenly spaced slots in the clay sub-base would have contained the joists or sleeper walls of an earlier (?original) suspended floor.
A clear join could be seen between the original walls of the chapel and those of the eastern extension, although the materials and construction methods used were almost identical to those of the original build. The extension's foundations were though noticeably shallower. The new east wall appears to have included corbels to support the original roof of the school room, suggesting the chapel was extended around 1876, at the same time as this building was added. The only possible contradictory evidence to this interpretation is the fact that original roof of the school room would have impacted on windows to either side of the new pulpit (the lower part of which have been blocked up).
See report (S4) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 11 March 2021.