Description

MINEHEAD

SS9646 THE AVENUE
900-1/3/79 (North side)
Avenue Methodist Church and attached
Sunday School to north-east

II

Methodist church. 1876; extended and remodelled in 1905, the
mid C19 church being made into the south aisle. Snecked
rubblestone with ashlar dressings, crested slate roof.
PLAN: Virtually cruciform aisled plan with apsidal east end.
Gothic Revival style.
EXTERIOR: 4-bay south aisle with transeptal east gable has
mostly 2-light windows with plate tracery under gauged stone
arches and hoodmoulds; single-storey hipped-roofed vestry
attached to east gable return; west lean-to porch has
pointed-arched doorway and cusped lancets with colonettes to
west return.
The 1905 work to the north is on a larger scale and in a Free
Gothic style with some French Early Gothic influence. The
semicircular apse has tall paired lancet windows with a
decorative ashlar and rubblestone frieze above; the roof is
semi-conical; the west end of the north aisle is similar.
INTERIOR: of 5 bays with bold arch-braced timber roof on
carved brackets; dog-tooth carving to arches; polychromatic
stonework to arcades with circular and octagonal piers and
moulded and chamfered arches of 2 orders; trumpet-scalloped
capitals to marble piers. Pine benches, dado and pulpit. 1905
glass with stained glass floral motifs; herringbone glazing to
clerestory.
Sunday School to north-east of church, built of English bond
brick with limestone bands and dressings; dentilled
bargeboards with pendentive to front (south) gable; slate
roof. Gabled south front in Free Tudor style has 5-light
transomed first-floor window with cusped lights over pentice
with buttresses to slate roof; stone-mullioned windows with
sunk spandrels to cusped heads flank stone doorway with
4-centred arch dying into jambs and carved rosettes, etc. to
spandrels. Dormers with leaded 4-light windows to returns.
INTERIOR: has 4-bay arch-braced timber roof.
House extending to rear (north) has gabled and half-hipped
roofs; in Gothic Revival style with double-gabled 2-bay west
front having central door and transomed windows: interior not
inspected.
HISTORY: The building of the Avenue Methodist Church quickly
followed the arrival of the railway in 1874, after which the
resort considerably expanded. The church was built on land
donated by GF Luttrell of Dunster Castle (Dunster CP).

Listing NGR: SS9700146283

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26503018

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

• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)