Description

WELLS

ST5545 SOUTHOVER
662-1/5/241 (South side)
13/09/72 Methodist Church with attached
rooms, and front boundary walls &
railings

GV II

Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, with former Sunday School Rooms.
Opened 1838, enlarged in 1865 and 1888. Ashlar stone front,
rendered sides, hipped Welsh slate roof behind parapet.
EXTERIOR: 2-storey front, 3 bays. Plinth, panelled end
pilasters, band course between floors, cornice, shallow
parapet with moulded coping. Semicircular arched windows in
plain reveals, with 16-pane casements below and 12-pane above,
all with interlaced bars to heads. Central entrance with pair
of 3-panel doors set in stone doorcase having Doric attached
columns and entablature with triglyphs and cornice, no
pediment.
3-bay return elevation. Small C20 porch on east side, single
storey, hipped roof. The far gable end also has two 16-pane
sashes with interlaced bars to the arched heads.
On the W is a single-storey schoolroom in squared local
stonework with ashlar dressings, plain gabled slate roof, tall
stone chimney stack. 3 bays, 2 pairs C20 doors bay 1, an
octagonal projection with hipped roof to bay 2, with slim
simple sash windows in the 3 leading faces, two 3-pane sash
windows in bay 3, all in segmental arched openings, 3
rooflights over.
INTERIOR: plain plastered walls, at the 'E' end an organ in
recess with moulded arch on Corinthianesque pilasters, and a
gallery with panelled front. At the entrance end is a gallery
on 2 slender cast-iron Doric columns, with a deep cove to a
stripped pine panelled front; the gallery has 5 rows of
panelled pews. Doors are C19 panelled with raised mouldings,
and there is some tinted glass in the arched heads of lights.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: extending from the schoolroom projection
eastwards, in two sections, on low stone walling, are late C20
railings with square mid C19 stone piers with double
semicircular tops, no gates but bollards in openings.
HISTORICAL NOTE: the chapel stands on the site probably
formerly occupied by a Presbyterian meeting-house of 1740, and
before this a chapel dedicated to St Thomas A Becket.
(Non-Conformist Chapels and Meeting-Houses: Stell C: South
West England: London: 1991-: 200; Serel T: History of Wells
(lecture 08.05.58): 1858-).

Listing NGR: ST5485045386

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26663126

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.

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