Heritage Chapel and Halls

Grade II Listed Status

ENGLISH HERITAGE BUILDING ID: 493326

The buildings, since 1^st September 2013 known as The Heritage Chapel and Halls, previously the Hope Methodist Church, fronting onto Park Road, Rushden, were granted a Grade II listing on 4^th May 2005.

The British Listed Buildings website describes the buildings in great detail but, unfortunately, there are many errors in the text which is Crown Copyright.  The following is therefore is an adaptation of that text with as many errors as possible corrected using contemporary press reports together with other, known information.


THE CHURCH HALL

The building to the south of the present church was opened in 1890 as the original chapel.  

With the building of the present chapel, the side arcades in the hall were subsequently partitioned to create small rooms whilst maintaining much of the original glass in the lower windows on the north side.  A suspended ceiling was added but the original curved braces to an open timber roof remain visible.

At the west end is a large meeting room.

At the east end there is a large 6-light window in Geometrical style over a projecting vestibule under a pentice roof.

The north porch of the hall was removed in the 1980s when an entrance/coffee lounge was added to join the hall to the present chapel.


THE CHAPEL

The foundation stones were laid on Easter Tuesday, 5^th April 1904, and the building opened on Easter Monday, 24^th April 1905.

The architect for the new building was Mr. J. Jameson Green, of Liverpool, and the contractor was Mr. Robert Marriott, builder, of Rushden.  Mr. Ambrose Marriott, of Higham Ferrers, was responsible for the heating apparatus, and the glasswork was done by Messrs. S. Evans & Son, of Smethwick.

Pressed red bricks with Bath stone facings were used for the exterior under a slate roof with coped gables.

The building occupies a north-east corner site at the junction of Park Road with Griffith Street.

At the corner is a massive square tower, ornamented with battlements, and which originally terminated in a lead-covered wooden spire but which was removed in 1986.  The north side of this tower, facing Griffith Street has a double door within a Gothic arched doorway.  The elaborate upper stage of the tower is stone-faced and has triple windows to all sides with a parapet above with corner domed turrets.  At the south-east corner is a low staircase tower with parapet and pyramidal roof and with an entrance to Park Road.

Between the two towers, and facing Park Road, is the main entrance which consists of a projecting porch which has angle buttresses and a basket-arched double doorway.  The main porch and vestibules have Terazzo paving – the work having been done by Italians.  Between the vestibules and the body of the chapel are several coloured-glass panels in subdued tints with elaborate leading in Art Nouveau style.

The sides of the church have two tiers of arched 3-light windows and the transepts project with a 4-light window on both tiers.  The north transept gallery window bears a scroll containing the words, “God is light. God is love”, whilst the south transept window has the words, “Serve the Lord with gladness”.  At the east end of the church, over the porch, is a 5-light window which contains the text, “Rejoice in the Lord”.  All the main windows have coloured glass and patterned leading.

At the west end of the church, and facing Griffith Street, is a group of meeting rooms in domestic style.  To the right of an entrance doorway is a 2-storeyed canted bay which provides a visual link with the housing in the street.  The meeting room on the ground floor was intended for a ladies’ parlour, with a class-room above also serving as a choir vestry.

The church has a wide gallery on three sides supported on iron columns.  Behind the pulpit, which was remodelled as a Second World War memorial, is a further, choir gallery.

There is an almost complete set of contemporary pews on both ground floor and in the galleries.  The staircases to the galleries have fine cast-iron balustrades.  Seating was originally provided for approximately 735 adults, or a mixed congregation of adults and juveniles of 900 – though considerably over 1,000 people were packed into it at the opening services on Easter Monday, 1905.

There is an elaborate hammer-beam roof rising from curved braces with gables for the transepts and cusped panels between the beams and collars, above and to the sides being boarded.

The front of the galleries, the match-boarding and the roof are of pitch pine, and on the ground floor the flooring is of pitch pine blocks and which is sloped 4 inches higher at the rear of the church than at the communion rail.  The pews are of oram wood, and the communion table and chairs are of solid carved oak.

At the west end of the church is a Ministers’ vestry, and below the choir gallery is a meeting room originally intended for the infants of the Sunday school – still known as the “Beginners’ Room”.


The ensemble of church, meeting rooms and church hall has a very successful and picturesque view from Park Road and Griffith Street with the prominent tower at the corner, and the church interior is little-altered with fine glass and fittings surviving under an impressive roof.

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