Description

SAFFRON WALDEN

TL5338 CASTLE STREET
669-1/1/88 (North side)
Methodist Church

GV II

Church and meeting rooms. 1864-8. Grey gault brick with red rick and stone dressings, composition tile and slated roofs. Rectangular plan, narrower at rear for meeting rooms.
EXTERIOR: S front elevation: gabled to street with red brickwork banding. Large upper lancet recess with inset 2+2 paired lancet windows, each with 3 paned casements, also round window in tympanum with saltire glazing bars, 'tumbled' red brickwork in gable, stone caps with gabled kneelers. Ground floor projecting gabled porch in similar style with kneelers, also red brick dwarf tumbled brick buttresses to sides. Doorway, lancet form, double recessed with prominent red brick inner arch, door, 2 leaves, boarded with decorative 'C' hinges. Oculus window in leaf patterned yellow glass, each side of porch gable. Rear, N elevation: assembly rooms, in line but smaller in scale than church. Gault brick, gable slate hung. Windows C20 casements, ground floor, 2 single-light, one 2-light in older segment headed aperture. First floor, one single light. Behind, N wall of church in red brick with blocked oculus window high in gable. E and W side elevations: similar, church body has 5 pilastered bays in black brick with red brick banding. Pilasters have double stepped section and one, 3 from S has cast brick ornamental capital. Each bay has paired lanced windows, red brick dressings, each window has 3 paned casement window. Meeting rooms to N, all windows are C20. W side central C19 boarded door, first floor, one 3-light, one single light casement window. E side, C20 door with upper glazed panel and full height side light, adjacent, 3-light casement window.

INTERIOR: church, all refurbished in C20 with dropped plain ceiling, C19 deep arched braces rise from moulded stone corbels and pass through present ceiling.

HISTORY: The chapel was constructed in 1864, by an unknown architect and was principally funded by Charlotte Berger, a well-known local Wesleyan activist. The Sunday school to the rear was not constructed until 1868. The chapel was re-ordered in 1896 and in the 1950s when the school room was partially rebuilt in Gault brick. During this latter campaign, an organ was set up in place of the pulpit and new vestries and choir stalls on either side of the organ were constructed. Further reordering in 1994 removed the vestries, replaced the organ with the pulpit, created a glazed narthex (a partitioned entrance or lobby area at the end of the nave),and removed the pews. In 2004, new windows were inserted with stained glass depicting the Stations of the Cross. During the later C20 a false ceiling was inserted.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: The Methodist chapel in Saffron Walden has special interest as an early example of gothic-style, structural polychromatic brickwork, used in a non-conformist chapel. Despite some alteration to the interior, the chapel retains a striking architectural treatment on the façade and has considerable presence in the townscape.

Listing NGR: TL5376038739

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26585330

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: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas