Description

BIDEFORD

SS4526 HIGH STREET 842-1/5/140 (South side) Methodist Church including schoolrooms and hall

GV II

Methodist church. 1912-13. By W Beddoes Rees of Cardiff. Front of rough-faced, grey and brown coursed Welsh stone rubble with dressings of limestone (probably Bath stone). Side and rear walls rendered; dressings of limestone and cream brick. Slate roofs with pierced red crested ridge-tiles. Cream-brick chimneys at rear. Church oblong in plan with galleries on north, east and west sides. Schoolrooms behind, and then the hall, lying at right-angles to the church. Arts and Crafts Gothic style. Front consists of a gabled centrepiece flanked by octagonal buttresses, these rising almost level with the apex of the gable. Lower battlemented wings at either side with steeply-pitched hipped roofs facing sideways. Centre has moulded doorway with pointed arch; double plank doors with ornate iron handles and strap-hinges. Flanking the doorhead a band of limestone panels with pointed, cinquefoiled arches, the second panel from each end glazed. In the upper stage a large, traceried 7-light window with pointed arch; mullions flanking the 3 centre lights are developed into buttresses which cut through the hood-mould and turn into 6-sided shafts; these then rise above the roof-line and are finished with capitals and scroll-buttressed finials. In the centre of the gable is a niche with cusped ogee arch; above it on the point of the gable is a large foliated finial; the octagonal buttresses at either side are banded with limestone, having limestone tops with trefoil-headed panels and ogee caps with ball-finials. The wings have plain, tapered ashlar diagonal buttresses: doorways and doors similar to those in the centre; in the upper stage bands of traceried windows, 5 lights at the front, 3 at the sides. Across the base of the front a series of memorial plaques in blue Forest of Dean stone. Side-walls of church have cream-brick buttresses; 2 rows of 2-light limestone windows with blind trefoiled arches to the lights. Windows at both front and sides have patterned coloured glass. Windows of schoolrooms and hall are mostly plain with cream-brick surrounds. West gable-wall of hall (visible from Providence Row) has doorway and door similar to those at front of church. Stone window above with pointed arch; 2 mullions and patterned coloured glass. Mock timber-framing in apex of gable. Plain bargeboards. INTERIOR: very well-preserved. Galleries on cast-iron columns with moulded caps; bowed, patterned cast-iron fronts. From the side-galleries rise further columns with foliated caps, these supporting 4-centred arches carrying the main roof. Ceiling barrel-vaulted with panelling on both ribs and spaces in between. Apse has piers with moulded imposts from which springs a 4-centred arch, the piers with traceried Gothic panels. Elaborate Gothic and Georgian-style wooden rostrum. Screen to vestibule and several doors half-glazed with patterned coloured glass. Schoolrooms not inspected in detail, but they include 2 staircases with turned balusters. The memorial stones were laid on 26 June 1912 and the church was opened on 2 July 191 (Bideford Weekly Gazette: 1912-1913: 2.7.1912; 10.12.1912).

Listing NGR: SS4516426574

External Links

• Wikidata Q26504542

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)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects by Harwood, Richard (2012) Paperback
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)