Description

This list entry was subjected to a Minor Enhancement on 28 March 2024 to amend details in the description, add Historical note and source and reformat the text to current standards

SE 3320 3V
2/196

MARKET STREET (West Side)
No 12

(Formerly listed as Sorting Office (formerly Post Office))

II

Former Nonconformist chapel, 1858 for the United Methodist Free Church, architect James Simpson of Leeds. Sold to the Post Office 1935, converted into a nightclub early C21.

This is a large, classical building with a pedimented five-bay front onto Market Street. Built of red brick with ashlar quoins and dressings, the frontage has four giant Corinthian order pilasters supporting an entablature and the pediment. At first floor, set between the pilasters, are three windows with segmental heads with keystoned architraves rising from an impost stringcourse. To the ground floor there is a central window with a plain architrave and two flanking doorways with segmental pediments, one doorway reduced to a window. The south side elevation (to Albion Court) is of six bays with tall segmental-headed windows to the first floor, similar to the front, and low sash windows with glazing bars below.

Listing NGR: SE3309020659

History

The chapel was built by a congregation which had been meeting at the Wakefield Corn Exchange following a series of expulsions in 1849 from the Wakefield Wesleyan Methodists. By 1851 this was the largest Methodist congregation in Wakefield. The foundation stone was laid by William Shaw of Stanley Hall on 2 February 1858 and the chapel was opened on 15 July 1859. It included a gallery and was designed by Leeds architect James Simpson to accommodate 630 people, costing nearly £2374. Following the 1932 Methodist Union the chapel became redundant, closing on 28 July 1935 after which it was sold to the General Post Office, which used the building as a post office and later as a sorting office associated with the neighbouring building. It was subsequently converted into a nightclub.

External Links

• Wikidata Q26549505

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

• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)