Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 7 September 2022 to amend the name and address and reformat the text to current standards

TQ 5946 NW
3/121

TONBRIDGE
EAST STREET
The Old Methodist Church

(Formerly listed as Methodist Church)

II

Methodist Church at time of listing. Completed in 1875 by Cattermole & Eade of Ipswich with adjoining Sunday School in similar style of 1897. Church built of red brick in Flemish bond with bands of yellow brickwork and stone dressings. Slate roof. Front has central gable with cross-shaped saddlestone and small quatrefoil window. Large arched window with corbels, the upper part a rose window with five trefoil arches below flashed by lancets with trefoil heads. Dripcourse. To left is one bay with arched window with trefoil heads and arched doorcase with gabled head sexfoil decoration and plank door with decorative hinges footscraper in decorative gable to right. To the right of the central gable are three bays and buttresses and three arched windows with trefoil decoration and similar doorcase. Left side elevation has two brick chimneys, sexfoil window above and two arched windows with trefoils below.

Interior of church has an unusually elaborate wooden roof of 'spider's web' form comprising a series of 4 intersecting arches and other arched braced tie- beams with elaborate fretted decorations in the spandrels including quatrefoil motifs. The church retains intact its original north arch comprising panelled organ gallery and two other upper galleries, pews and pulpit.

Attached to the right hand side is the Victoria Hall of 1896-7 in similar style also in red brick with stone dressings. Large gable with hood moulding and triple lancet window, the top with quatrefoil below trefoil flanked by similar single lancets. To the right the Sunday School has a smaller gable with blank quatrefoil, triple sash window to first floor and triple Caernarvon arched windows to ground floor. Arched doorcases. Right side elevation is cement rendered.

Listing NGR: TQ5912246603

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26323415

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

• 
  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6