Listed Building: UNITED REFORM CHURCH AND ATTACHED WALL AND RAILINGS TO NORTH EAST (412600)

POOLE SZ0190SW SKINNER STREET 958-1/18/148 (North East side) 14/06/54 United Reform Church and attached wall and railings to north-east (Formerly Listed as: SKINNER STREET United Reform Church) GV II* Chapel. c1777, vestry added to N 1814, extended one bay to E 1823, gallery and roof altered 1886, interior altered and reseated 1880. English bond brickwork with slate-hung S side, and half-hipped slate roof. Rectangular plan. 2 storeys and attic; 5-window range. A symmetrical front has a wide gable with coved corners and shallow elliptical-arched central section, with 2 sharp obelisk finials. 1823 timber hexastyle portico with Tuscan columns, entablature and central pediment, cartouche above dated 1777, and recessed 2-leaf doorway and fanlight. Semicircular-arched ground-floor and 2-centre-arched first-floor windows with keys and imposts, with 3 blind round-arched windows in the gable. Y-tracery timber mullions to windows with glazing bars. Similar fenestration to 4-window side ranges. INTERIOR: altered and refitted early C19. Reported to contain a continuous gallery on timber quatrefoil columns with moulded capitals and stone bases to elliptical arches, and carrying the king post roof; 6-bay arcade, the gallery extended inwards and supported on cast-iron columns 1823, with a panelled front. FITTINGS: include an early C19 clock, late C17 chair with turned sides, and 1823 pews around gallery front. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached brick wall and capped piers, formerly with urn finials, with good cast-iron piers with bronze finish, gates and railings. Railings extend approx 30m to NE, and formerly extended the same distance to the W. Although internally remodelled in the early C19, the C19 fittings are of high architectural quality and the exterior survives as one of the finest C18 nonconformist town chapels in England, manifesting the C18 prosperity of Poole. (RCHME: County of Dorset (South East): London: 1970-: 201; Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Newman J: Dorset: London: 1972-: 319; Stell C: An Inventory of Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting Houses in SW E: London: 1991-: 124). Listing NGR: SZ0124790444

Record last edited

Mar 31 2011 3:46AM