Description

PLYMOUTH

SX4855 NORTH HILL, Plymouth
740-1/43/387 (West side)
18/11/91 Sherwell Church and associated
buildings including Shelly Hall

GV II*

Congregational church. 1864 by Aycliffe and Paul of
Manchester. Dressed and coursed Plymouth limestone with ashlar
dressings of lighter colour; plain tile roof with chamfered
stone coped gables.
STYLE: Middle Pointed.
PLAN: hall church with galleries to 3 sides; transepts at W
(ritual E) end; 2-storey porch to S of E end and tower to N of
E end; hall/sunday school to north of church and caretaker's
cottage.
EXTERIOR: 2-storey elevations; all walls have ashlar banding,
polychrome voussoirs to openings and delicate early Decorated
style tracery to the windows. Gabled E entrance front has
5-light window set above 3-bay entrance flanked by offset
corner buttresses; foliate stops to hoodmoulds over pointed
arches set on marble shafts with foliate capitals. Central
doorway has quatrefoil set in tympanum over trumeau and is
flanked by trefoil-headed lancets with quatrefoil tracery.
This central gable is flanked by slightly set-back outshuts
fronted by a 2-storey porch with pyramidal roof on the left
and a tall (135 foot) tower with stone spire on the right.
These are fronted by slender turrets with angle roofs behind
parapets and with flanking lean-tos behind parapets; 2 cusped
windows to each turret and cusped lancet to front of each
lean-to. The porch tower has weathering dividing the 2 stages
and traceried single-light window to upper stage with
entablature and bracketed cornice. 3-stage main tower has
offset buttresses; paired traceried lights to 2nd stage and
louvred 2-light traceried windows to upper stage. The fine
2-tier spire has lucarnes and a turned finial and the spire is
set over an entablature with brackets and symbols of the Four
Evangelists.
S elevation is 1:4:1 bays: buttressed gabled transept on the
left with 4-light window over pair of 2-light windows;
buttressed aisle right of this with 2-light windows over pairs
of lancets, and porch on right with 2-light window over
pointed-arched doorway with trefoil to tympanum.
Gable-end buttressed front of hall has gable trefoil over
3-light window over gabled porch with corner buttresses and
segmental arched doorway.

Taller Sunday school gable end behind has central quatrefoil.
The roof is surmounted by a steep pyramidal ventilator with
timber trefoil-headed arches framing louvred openings. Side
walls have plain pointed-arched transomed windows. A tall
chateau-style roof crowns the tall stair tower which dominates
the angle where the schoolroom meets the church.
Other elevations have detail of similar quality, all the
windows have leaded glass and the doorways have their original
planked doors.
INTERIOR: not inspected but noted as having paired cast-iron
columns to galleries and C19 stained glass.
This fine church was noted by contemporaries to be the first
example of a West Country church to be built in the Gothic
style. The building is richly detailed and competently handled
by a well-known Manchester firm.
(The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1989-:
647 & 648).

Listing NGR: SX4811355044

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17554512

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

• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)