20739

 

II  

Designated  

23/10/1998  

25/03/2002  

Summerhill Baptist Church  

 

Newport  

Victoria  

Newport  

Summerhill  

332415  

188617  

E  

On the hillside NE of Maindee centre.  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

 

Baptist church built 1865, extended 1908. Formal inauguration of church with 17 members in 1862, meeting in an upper room off Crown Street behind Albert Avenue. Building on this site completed 1866 at cost of £1300, builder Richard Webber of Maindee, architects believed to be Habershon, Pite and Fawckner. First pastor and founder Revd TL Davies 1861-72. In 1878 vestry and 7 classrooms added at E end and organ and organ loft installed under W window. In 1889 organ was moved to E end and galleries built to accommodate Sunday School. Stained glass windows to commemorate one of the 17 original members, John Jones, donated by his widow 1893. Repairs to fabric 1900. In 1907-1908 major alterations included new front vestibule and side entrances to galleries, new lighting, heating and ventilation systems. Land was aquired for a separate block to N comprising Lecture Hall and classrooms with back entrance from Victoria Avenue. Ceremonial opening of enlarged and renovated church 1908. Daughter churches established elsewhere in E Newport include Corporation Road Baptist Church and Penylan Baptist Church, still extant, also Riverside, now converted to use by another denomination.  

Chapel, in Gothic style. The earlier build of pale stone and the later darker, rockfaced and snecked, with ashlar dressings; Welsh slate and tiled roof. Gable-end frontage is dominated by a large rose window with chunky tracery in an ashlar roundel, surmounted by an ashlar arch, flanked by shallow pilaster buttresses; above is a small apex light and cruciform finial. Projecting on each side to an unusual depth are 2-storey gabled staircase bays with full height angle buttresses with offsets; a long narrow pointed arched window with trefoil head, hoodmould and quatrefoil panel below sill and pointed-arched lower ground floor doorways. Linking the two staircase bays is a single storey entrance bay with large moulded pointed arched doorway to centre reached by a flight of steps, flanked by 2-light vestibule windows with dedication stones below; the coping is raised to form a gable over the doorway with decorative finial.  

4-sided gallery, the end occupied by the organ set in an arched recess, the other 3 sides raked. Gallery fronts are of cast iron pierced panels with a floral motif and roundels, separated by pilasters, coved at base. Flat ceiling with metal trusses. Large rose window at W; long narrow side windows are round-headed through two storeys; all have coloured glass with Art Nouveau motifs dating from the 1907-8 refurbishment. Gallery is supported by very slender cast iron piers with decorative capitals and triangular trusses. 3 blocks of pews, those at side angled, face the pulpit. In front is a part removable wood and cast iron rail to the platform which contains a large baptistry for total immersion under the communion table. Wood floors and painted dado panelling. To rear the vestibule created by the 1907-8 extension has a centre window of triple arched lights and 2 side part glazed boxed doors, all with coloured glass. On the wall is an unusual plaque commemorating in photographic cameos members of the Sunday School fallen in the Great War. The vestibule has a terrazzo floor with curvilinear motifs and staircases up each side with metal balusters lit by long staircase windows.  

Listed as an interesting mid C19 chapel partly remodelled in early C20; one of the major chapel buildings in the Newport suburbs.