Description

ILFRACOMBE

SS5147 HIGH STREET
853-1/6/156 (North side)
The Lantern, including former Sunday
School, front wall and railings

II

Formerly known as: United Reformed Church including Sunday
School, front wall and railings HIGH STREET.
Community centre, formerly church (Congregational) and former
Sunday School. Church 1818, re-modelled, and probably
re-fronted, in early 1880s; Sunday school rebuilt by WH Gould
of Ilfracombe in 1884.
MATERIALS: local greenish, New Road stone rubble; the church
front and right-hand side-wall with details in white and red
(Mansfield) dressed stone, cast-iron and polished granite.
Left side wall and rear wall of church with details in
yellowish dressed stone (probably Bath stone) and some red
brick; rear end of side wall and whole of rear wall hung with
old local slates having an irregular, silvery surface.
Front of Sunday School in white and red dressed stone as the
church. Slated roofs.
EXTERIOR: Fronts of former church and Sunday School in Italian
Gothic Style, including the front side-walls of the church;
remainder in English Decorated style.
Church has 2-stage gabled front with ornately carved
stringcourse between the white voussoirs. Lower stage has
centre doorway flanked by triple openings containing a doorway
and 2 windows. Centre doorway flanked by paired granite
columns with round cinquefoil window in the head of the arch;
triple openings separated by paired cast-iron columns. Doors
have small square panels, the upper panels in the centre doors
with decorative ironwork, those in the outer doors with
coloured glass. Upper stage has 2 middle windows themselves
having a round cusped window above, the whole set in a shallow
recess with pointed arch and flanked granite columns. All
windows have coloured glass. Right-hand side-wall similar, but
plainer. Front left-hand side wall even plainer, with
traceried window in the upper stage, but in the lower stage a
triple pointed arch of brick, evidently infilling an earlier
opening.
Rear of left side-wall has 3-light windows with pointed arches
and cusped, interlacing tracery in the lower stage;
flat-headed 2-light windows with ogee-headed lights above. In
the gable, a large window containing 5 round cusped lights.
Former Sunday School (set well back to right) has a
flat-headed chamfered doorway in centre inscribed
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY SCHOOL and with A.D. 1884 at either
side. Pointed, single-light flanking windows; 3-light window
with pointed arch above, the lights with pointed heads and
having a large, round cinquefoiled light above.
INTERIOR with panelled and bracketed pine gallery at west end,
extending to either side, on cast-iron clustered columns.
Queen post roof with arched braces.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: along the street frontage is a low stone
wall with decorated iron railing on top. In the centre a pair
of similar iron gates flanked by gate piers of alternating red
and white stone, these being topped by massive stone caps in
Gothic style. Ornate iron overthrow lampholder and lamp.

Listing NGR: SS5163147542

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26503793

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

• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects by Harwood, Richard (2012) Paperback
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)