Site:   

Redditch Baptist Chapel & Sunday School,

Easemore Road, Town Centre

Grid Reference:    

SP 0429 67856

Description:

Baptist Chapel and adjoining Sunday School. 1922-3 by Wills & Son of Derby and built by C.G.Huins & Sons. Brick with stone dressings. Plain clay tiled roof behind parapet with kneelers. Continuous 5-bay nave and chancel. South gable end facing road is well-detailed having broad stone bands and large, 5-light pointed window with Perpendicular tracery and a hoodmould with foliated stops. Beneath is a pair of gabled porches flanked by single-light windows. Two-stage stair tower at west end with an embattled parapet and three-light traceried windows in upper stage. Side elevations articulated by pilaster buttresses and having mainly large cross-casements with leaded lights. Three-light window in westernmost bays beneath pointed arch. Pair of gabled wings project to north-west. Three-light Perpendicular north window. Simple broad interior with two-bay arcade to north-west. Panelled gallery at south end with central canted bay. Memorial painting on south wall by H. Lindsey Ruff of 1842.

Rear corridor links church with:

Sunday School. Also 1897 and similar in materials and style but smaller in scale. Three bays with flat-roofed aisles. South end has stone banding and 5-light Perpendicular window. Beneath this is a flat-roofed projection and central porch flanked by single-light windows. Mullion and transom windows at south end of aisles; cross-casements elsewhere. Interior not inspected.

The church replaced the original Baptist Church in Ipsley Street of 1897-8.

Significance:

An excellent composition in terms of its form, mass and detail that presents a lively gabled profile to the street. These buildings provide a valuable focal point among the disparate buildings that line the upper end of Easemore Road (qv). They form a group with the adjacent Masonic Hall (qv), which is contemporary in date and built of similar materials, and their distinctive forms, are clearly defined by the open space that surrounds them and give a special character and identity to this part of the town centre.

History:

This building........