Former Holly Mount United Reformed Church, with balcony, steps, gates and boundary walls, Great Malvern, Great Malvern, Worcestershire

Summary

A Congregational Church of 1875 by James Tait of Leicester.

Description

A Congregational Church of 1875 by James Tait of Leicester.

MATERIALS: walls are Cradley stone with Bath stone dressings and red colourwash over the mortar joints. Internally Forest of Dean stone is used for the columns dividing the aisles from the nave. The roof is covered with Broseley clay tiles.

PLAN: rectangular nave with projections at right angles to the corners. The nave roof is pitched, with catslide roofs covering the aisles. The church is orientated roughly north / south with a tower at the north-east corner and a block of ancillary rooms containing a vestry to the south. The vestry room block is two stories under a pitched roof with gable ends to east and west and is linked to the nave by a lower height section. The church is built into the hill, presenting three stories to the east elevation facing Worcester Road. The top level of the building houses the church’s nave, the floor below the school room and further ancillary rooms. The lowest floor is void except for access stairs and small store and ancillary rooms. The church is surrounded by a path enclosed variously by stone and brick walls, a wooden fence and iron railings. A stairway rises from Queen’s Drive in the north to the entrance lobby in the north elevation.

EXTERIOR: walls are in rock-faced Cradley stone laid to course. Roofs are clay tile and pitched, with the exception of the north-west corner projection which is hipped. The nave roof has cocks comb ridge tiles. Most gable apices have a finial. Door and window surrounds and window tracery are in Bath stone. Tracery is largely Geometric Decorated Gothic style bar tracery, though some smaller windows use plate tracery. Most windows are pointed arch shaped, but ogee and four-centred arch heads appear. Square headed windows in chamfered frames with stone mullions are used mainly for ancillary rooms and stair lights.

The north elevation consists of three sections from east to west: the tower, the gable end of the pitched roof central section containing the nave and lobby, then the ancillary rooms at the north end of the west aisle. The central section has two pairs of lancet windows either side of the foundation stone, each pair under a larger pointed stone arch set into the stone. The foundation stone is inscribed ‘LAID BY / TR HILL ESQ MP / 29 SEP 1875’. Above the lancet pairs is the tall north window with geometric tracery under a hood mould. A horizontal drip mould runs under this main window. In the apex of the gable is a plate tracery quatrefoil. At first floor level a round turret decorated with a drip mould and a blind arcade of trefoil headed arches rises from the north-western corner of the central section, with a capped buttress below the turret. West of the turret, and north of the ancillary rooms to the west of the lobby and north of the west aisle is a pitched roof porch with double door to the lobby. This door is in a concentric arch surround under a hood mould. Rising behind the porch is the hipped roof to the rooms north of the west aisle.

The east elevation to Worcester Road is in four sections from south to north: the vestry rooms in the south and a link attaching them to the central nave, a projection from the south end of the nave and east aisle, then the east elevation of the east aisle, and finally the tower in the north. At the south end of the nave, the last bay of the eastern aisle extends out to the east and is housed under a steep pitched roof at right angles to the main north / south aligned nave roof. This eastern projection has a large sexafoil window in the gable with the two lancet windows below. Beneath these at lower ground floor level are two square-headed windows under gently curved relieving arches, with a buttress between these. The east elevation of the east aisle is topped by a parapet of small round headed arches which extends to the projection from the south end of the aisle. There are three large pointed arch windows lighting the aisle, each incorporates a quatrefoil over two lancet windows. The plain caps of four buttresses flank these three windows, with the buttresses continuing down to the floor below where they separate three wider, more shallow arch headed windows than those aligned centrally above them.

The south elevation is the two-storey rear of the vestry rooms and ancillary rooms beneath. Above the vestry can be seen the three windows in the south gable end of the nave, and to the west of this, the unusual two-tiered gabled roof over the former organ space which projects to the south-west of the nave.

The west elevation faces the western part of Queen’s Drive. The nave roof has three pitched dormer plate-tracery windows. Below the dormers the roof becomes a catslide to cover the aisle which has three pointed arch windows, as in the east elevation. The southern bay of the aisle projects out to form the space which housed the organ, and is covered by a pitched roof at right angles to the aisle roof. This bay is lit by two narrow arched windows with a sexafoil above them in the gable. South of this is the link to the vestry building and the west gable of the vestry. North of the aisle another projection extends under a hipped roof, the west elevation of this is blank except for a row of three windows with trefoil tracery to their tops under a square head beneath the eaves. Further to the north-west is the west side of the pitched roof of the north porch, and the turret on the north-west corner.

TOWER
The church has a tower at its north-east corner. The tower is square in plan with each corner buttressed, leaving a recessed central section to the four elevations. There is a circular plan turret engaged to the south-east corner of the tower. The buttresses taper upwards to elongated pyramid shaped caps which clasp the octagonal spire. Level with the eaves of the nave roof, each tower elevation has an elongated arched opening in a frame of concentric arches under an ogee hood mould. Above these openings, starting level with the caps of the buttresses and in line with the four elevations, are four narrow lucarnes under steep gablets on alternating faces of the octagonal spire.

The north tower elevation has a central double door in a moulded arched frame under a hood mould, with another stone arch set into the surrounding stonework immediately above that. Over the door is a shallow, steep-gabled porch roof which comes out on kneelers to span the width of the tower.

The east elevation of the tower has a single door at the base, which is at lower ground level, below that of the door in the north elevation. This east door is in a concentric arch frame with a stone arch surround built into the wall. Above this, buttresses begin at the corners, enclosing a horizontal window divided by chamfered mullions into six square lights. A rectangular recess with a square window is immediately over the south end of the square windows, and above that is a drip mould above which is a long narrow slit opening.

VESTRY AND ANCILLARY ROOMS
The vestry room block is two stories under a pitched roof with east and west facing gable ends with stone coping to the verges. To the east elevation, each storey has a stone mullioned triple casement window in alignment with each other. The first-floor windows differ from those below in being taller, incorporating a stone transom and arched heads, with a round relieving arch in the stonework above. The link to the nave on the east side houses a staircase with a doorway and side window at ground floor level, and three square windows below the eaves of the awkwardly shaped slope to the small link roof. To the south elevation, a window of four lights separated by wide double chamfered mullions with four-centred-arch heads is under the eaves. East of this is a stone chimney which is located off-centre to the east. A single doorway with a brick surround is at ground level, with a small square window on the west side of the chimney breast. The west elevation has a link to the south bay of the aisle which has a single doorway, this connects to the gable end of the vestry which has a pair of lancet windows in a square frame under a rounded relieving arch, with a small square window south of this.

INTERIOR: the nave is wide and four bays long, bays are delineated by the trusses of the arch-braced roof. A C20 partition seals off the northern end of the nave to form a narthex. The central three bays are lit by the large windows to the aisles and the southernmost bays by the double windows in the right-angle projections from the nave. The aisles are separated from the nave by arches supported by relatively slender hexagonal stone columns which have high bases and capitals with a triple abacus. At the south end of the nave is a raised stage for an altar which was used by the URC. The south wall incorporates a reredos of two panels displaying the Ten Commandments from the Book of Exodus. Each panel is set within a recessed pointed arch, these arches are divided by a pair of columns with carved foliate capitals and are themselves set within a larger arch recessed deeper into the wall. Over the panels finely detailed corbels support an arched hood mould over the large central which continues in smaller flanking arches over the side doors to the vestry rooms behind the south wall of the nave.

The school room on the floor below the nave has a C20 stage inserted to its southern end and is divided into a narrower and wider section by three large brick piers. A door from the south end opens to a kitchen to the east. Some of the ancillary rooms have been subdivided to provide additional toilets. The lowest floor is mainly void except for some small storage and more toilet rooms, and stairway access to upper floors. Stairs are timber with closed strings, turned balusters, plain rounded handrails and ball finial newel posts.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the boundary to Queen’s Drive in the west is a rubble stone wall with irregular rubble capping stones. A florally decorated single iron gate which opens on to Queen’s Drive in the east, south-east of the tower enables entry to the path surrounding the church. North of the church on the eastern side of Queen’s Drive are other rubble stone walls, steps and gates allowing access to the different levels of the church, with the iron gate facing east to Queens’ Drive featuring the sunflower motif. A tall, rock-faced stone balcony provides access to the door in the north face of the tower. The top of this balcony has square stone openings separated by chamfered mullions immediately below a stone rail.

History

The Congregational Church in England was an affiliation of churches adhering to a Reformed Protestant Christian faith where the congregations were self-governing. They became established in Malvern in the middle of the C19. At first church meetings were held in a cottage, but in 1861 due to growing membership, a chapel seating 260 was constructed at 84 Cowleigh Road. The coming of the railway to Malvern in 1860 spurred further growth of the town and so by 1875 an even larger place of worship was required. The Reverend AC Gill was the minister instrumental in raising funds for the new church on Queen’s Drive, on land purchased from the Holly Mount estate. The site is on the slope of the eastern side of North Hill in the Malverns range. The steep site allowed for a school room to be built below the church, a typical arrangement for non-conformist churches in the C19, though the degree of steepness here required a third floor below this.

The church was designed by the Leicester architect James Tait (1834/5-1915) and built by a Mr Meredith of Gloucester. The window tracery is in Decorated Gothic style and the south-west windows feature stained glass sunflowers influenced by the contemporary Aesthetic Movement. The carving and glass are attributed to the notable Worcester sculptural mason William Forsyth (1834-1915).

The foundation stone was laid by the Worcester MP TR Hill on 29 September 1875, and Reverend Gill conducted the opening service on 28 September 1876. The Worcestershire Chronicle of 30 Sep 1876 reported on the opening and quoted the cost of the church and land as £5,200. This sum was for a church to seat 400 with the potential to add a gallery to seat a further 100 people. In 1878 the church’s building committee accepted the tender of a Mr Broad for works to the vestry, and by October 1882 the church had paid off the whole debt for the building which had reached £6,666 1s 4d.

The ancillary rooms include a kitchen near the school room which allowed this space to also be used for various lectures, meetings and functions. During both the First World War and Second World War the church was used as a club for soldiers garrisoned in the town.

Holly Mount was one of the many Congregational Churches which merged with the Presbyterian Church of England to form the United Reformed Church (URC) in 1972. The church remained in use by the URC until shortly before its sale in 2020. The pitch pine pews, pulpit and organ had been removed by August 2021.

Reasons for Listing

The former Holly Mount United Reformed Church, with steps, gates and boundary walls, Queen’s Drive, Great Malvern, a Congregational Church of 1875 by James Tait of Leicester, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* the building is a well-designed church by a known architect and is attractive in the variety of its massing and pleasingly asymmetric articulation, with the steeple being of particular note. It skilfully makes use of the awkward plot shape on a very steep incline and provides both a place of worship and ancillary spaces;
* the plan of the church with its wide nave and integrated schoolroom indicates it to be for a non-conformist denomination, and the scale of the building with the inclusion of a steeple show that it was for a wealthy church community like the Congregational Church;
* the stone carving throughout the building exhibits a high standard of craftsmanship.

Historic interest:

* the building gives insight into the support the Congregational Church had in Malvern in the late-C19, proving that its congregation was large and dedicated enough to raise the considerable sum required to build a large place of worship;
* the choice of a contemporary, secular Aesthetic Movement scheme for decorations to windows and iron gates speaks of the modern and independent nature of the congregation.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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