Description

718/0/10176

MELBOURNE ROAD
Melbourne Hall Evangelical Free Church and attached former Memorial Schools

(Formerly listed as Melbourne Hall Free Church and attached Memorial Schools)
II*

13-NOV-02

Also Known As: Melbourne Hall Evangelical Free Church and attached former Memorial Schools, ST PETERS ROAD.

Church and attached Sunday Schools building. 1880 and 1884. By Goddard and Paget of Leicester. Red brick with blue brick banding to church and moulded brick bands to schools and plain tile roofs. Church has centralised plan and is in Byzantine Gothic style with Scandinavian style octagonal main roof. Schools in Domestic Revival style.

EXTERIOR of church. Main front to St. Peter's Road has central wide gable with hipped roofed two storey entrance porches to sides. Octagonal main part of church set back to rear. Gable has a run of seven tall lancets with a broad band of terra cotta foliage work between glazing to ground and first floors. Large rose window in gable. The upper fenestration continues to left and right in the upper parts of the porches, but alternate openings are blank. On ground floor either side is a doorway with moulded arch and slightly projecting gable. The upper fenestration continues round the sides of the porch element and there are wider spaced lancets below. All the glazing is of very small panes of tinted glass set in leaded lights. In the centre of the sides of the church are buttresses supporting the central space and a pair of tall two-light windows, which are repeated by similar shorter windows on the canted sides of the octagon. Above rises the massive tall octagon roof ending in a finial. To the left of the left side of the church are further lancets on two floors and then a two storey gabled porch element with triple lancet over arched doorway with pair of part-glazed doors and glazed surround. Attached to the left of this porch is the schools building.

EXTERIOR of schools. Two storeys and attic. Wide central gable has two storeys of a four window range of mullion and transom windows with leaded lights with tinted glass. Raised band between storeys has cut brick inscription 'THE ROBERT WALKER MEMORIAL SCHOOLS'. The attic gable has a large rose window with timber openwork to sides and apex supported on moulded brackets. Lower aisle like ends to right and left, that to left with entrance doorway with ornamental typanum and glazed doors. The building has, on either side at attic level, a long clerestory of continuous mullioned windows with leaded light glazing, that to Earl Howe Street boarded in. Taller mullion and transom windows below this on both sides, with facing Earl Howe Street, a gabled projection to right with a circular window in the gable surrounded by timber openwork. To left there is a small projecting wing with entrance in lean-to porch. Behind are the classrooms which extend around the church surrounding a small yard.

INTERIOR of church. The large impressive space has galleries on three sides supported on iron columns and pine pews both to these and below. Central preaching and officers platform with choir seating behind. Stained glass in the east and west rose windows. The light from many large windows filled with tinted glass is an impressive feature of the church. Above is a massive roof structure formed by elaborate timber work.
Many of the other rooms survive with contemporary detailing.

INTERIOR of schools. Large hall has gallery to three sides on iron columns. Recent false ceiling. Many other classrooms including one (lounge) with fireplace with panelled surround.

A very impressive and finely-detailed group of buildings with many internal features surviving.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17553704

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)