Longton Central Methodist Hall

Summary

Methodist Central Hall, a 1933 adaption of an 1842 chapel.

Reasons for Designation

Longton Central Methodist Hall, adapted from an 1842 chapel, altered in the late-C19 and completed in 1933, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as an adaption of an earlier 1842 chapel the building retains much of its high quality late-C19 interior including its large hall with gallery and lantern supported by elegant fluted columns with coffered panelled ceiling;
* the 1933 remodelling of the building has remained sensitive to the hall with a new classical frontage of good quality and new lobby added.

Historic interest:

* as the first central hall created in the Stoke and Macclesfield district, noteworthy for retaining its plan form and remarkably avoiding significant alteration;
* as a survival of a once popular type of Methodist church in the early-C20, intended to closely align secular, everyday life with worship.

Group value:

* with the Grade II-listed Longton Town Hall and Market.

History

The Potteries’ first Methodist chapel was in Burslem in 1766, with John Wesley and his preachers visiting the towns several times in the subsequent decades. Longton’s first Methodist chapel was built in 1783. When Wesley went there to preach the following year, and again in 1786, he did so in the open air as the chapel was unable to accommodate the number of congregants. It is recounted that ‘the religious revival to which the preaching of Wesley and his associates gave rise thus corresponded with the first rapid expansion of these villages’ (See Victoria County History in Sources), and hence a second, larger, chapel was erected in 1804 in what became Chapel Street. The congregation again outgrew the building, and a third chapel was erected in Stafford Street, now the Strand, in 1842, to hold 500. Primitive Methodist and Methodist New Connexion chapels had also been built by that time.

The 1842 chapel was built in a Greek revival style, with a portico supported on Doric columns. A school was built to the rear in 1850. In 1877 internal alterations replaced the pulpit with a rostrum, and the ceiling and supporting pillars were highly ornamented. It reopened on 15 April 1877. A further remodelling was made in 1933, converting the building to become the first Central Hall in the Stoke and Macclesfield district. Newspapers report a high degree of reconstruction of the 1842 chapel, though the original façade appears to have been retained and extended - it remains visible behind the new front - and the plan form, with the curved west end, also survives, suggesting the original elevations were incorporated. The cost was £17,150 and it reopened on 13 November 1933.

Details

Methodist Central Hall, a 1933 adaption of an 1842 chapel.

MATERIALS: the façade of 1933 is red brick laid in stretcher bond with reconstituted-stone dressings. Windows have iron frames and leaded glass. The roof is slate.

PLAN: the building stands on the west side of the Strand. The main hall is orientated roughly east-west; it is rectangular, with a curved west end. Adjoining it to the south is a caretaker’s flat with an irregular plan which oversails a pedestrian passage into a courtyard, providing entrance into the former school, to the rear (not included in the List entry).

EXTERIOR: the principal façade of the hall is a symmetrical, neo-Georgian composition of three storeys. It has a wide central bay faced in stone, with wide stone angle-pilasters and a deep cornice framing the façade. Central on the ground floor the entrance is recessed between rusticated piers and has a metal canopy above. There are two pairs of double doors entering into the lobby; these are oak with large windows with margin glazing-bars, and an oak panel above. There is a shop unit on either side, withC20 frontages, and rusticated piers at the angles. Above the canopy, the frontispiece has a double-height Renaissance arch with three-light leaded windows on the first and second floor, flanked by giant pilasters with stylised classical mouldings. There is a shield with swags and scrolls in the tympanum of the open pediment. There are three window bays to either side; those on the first floor have projecting sills, and those on the second have gauged brick arches; moulded stone panels with central discs fill the vertical space between. Windows are leaded with margin glazing bars and small stained-glass designs at the centre of the upper panes. The roof is hipped with an apex chimneystack. Return elevations are plain, with two storeys of four lights. There is a hipped lantern on the roof above the main hall, with leaded clerestory lights.

Adjoining the hall on the left is the three-bay caretaker’s flat, which stands lower than the façade of the hall. It is plainer in its treatment, though shares elements of detailing, such as leaded windows. On the ground floor there is a plain opening into the foot passage to the rear courtyard, and an entrance doorway with a simple architrave and a half-glazed door. The stone storey course of the main façade continues on the flat, above which there are three windows with stone sills and gauged brick arches to each storey. There is a plain stone band at the parapet.

INTERIOR: terrazzo-lined steps lead into the lobby, which is a wide open space with a parquet floor. There is a wide timber-screen dividing the lobby and the main hall; it contains two pairs of half-glazed double doors, with a row of lights above. Glazing has geometric leading, with coloured and textured glass, and decorative motifs and shields. A flight of stairs ascends on either side of the lobby, providing access to the gallery and upper floors; the stairs are timber, with curved treads at the bottom. Gilded plaster mouldings enrich the ceilings, and there are glass pendant-light fittings. The upper floors house a prayer room and accommodation for a caretaker. The caretaker’s accommodation is over two floors with a designated entrance at ground floor via The Strand, to the south of the pedestrian passage. The flat has two reception rooms at first-floor level with two bedrooms above accessed via a timber 1930s stair.

The hall is a lofty, open-plan space with a gallery around three sides, with a rostrum, large organ, and orchestra gallery at the west end. Stained-glass windows along either side of the hall light the main floor and gallery, and there is a clerestory lantern in the roof. The rostrum is approximately 1.5m high, and has a panelled oak front, with a central alcove beneath the stage, and a low rail in front. To the rear of the stage, raked choir seating fans upwards and outwards, with narrow timber-stairs on either side. The wide rank of organ pipes forms a backdrop and has moulded oak casings. On the main floor, a series of fluted cast iron columns support the gallery above; its balustrade has moulded piers above the columns, and fielded panels in-between, with a projecting cornice forming a handrail. The soffit of the gallery rakes upwards and has moulded ribs between the columns and elevations. The columns continue to rise from the gallery balustrade and have Corinthian capitals supporting the clerestory lantern above. The gallery has raked tilting seating. There is a moulded cornice, from which ribs slope upwards, meeting the large coffered moulded panels of the ceiling; there is a dentil moulding around the clerestory, and the roof above has further deep moulded ribs. The choir and minister’s vestry rooms are accessed at the rear of the hall, beneath the stage and choir seating. A passage at the south-west end of the hall leads to the former school building (not included in the listing).

Sources

Websites
'The city of Stoke-on-Trent: Protestant Nonconformity', in A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 8, ed J G Jenkins (1963), 276-307. British History Online , accessed 29 october 2020 from http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/staffs/vol8/pp276-307

Other
‘New Methodist Central Hall at Longton’, Staffordshire Sentinel (Evening Sentinel), 28 September 1933, 6
'Methodist Central Hall at Longton', Staffordshire Sentinel (Evening Sentinel), 10 November 1933, 13
Designation Record (Locally Listed Building), ‘Longton Central Hall’, (ref DSR436), Stoke-on-Trent City Council

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