Details
VINEYARDS
656-1/31/1772 (West side)
Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel
including Chapel House
(Formerly Listed as:
THE VINEYARDS
Trinity Presbyterian Church
(Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel)
& Chapel House)
12/06/50
GV II*
Former chapel and chapel house, now museum. Opened for service 6th October 1765. Possibly by Thomas Warr Atwood for Selina, Countess of Huntingdon.
MATERIALS: Limestone ashlar, slate roof with moulded stacks to each side.
EXTERIOR: Gothick-fronted two storey former chapel house with single storey two-window wings to each side, with museum in former chapel behind. The ensemble is set back on a raised site from the street. Central block, extending well forward, with wide canted bay to centre, has coped parapet with battlements over bay; returned cornice and lintel frieze to first floor, ground floor cornice continues and returns on single storey wings parapets, castellated at front. Flattened ogee arches and Gothick glazing to windows, six/six-pane sashes to centre of three-light window each floor flanked by two four/four-pane sashes, one to each side of canted bay. One room wings have ogee arched overlights with Gothick glazing to six/six-pane sash windows in moulded architraves flanked by triple colonnettes with ring mouldings to shafts, outer windows blind with painted glazing bars. Rough ashlar plinth with windows to basement. To rear of right-hand one room wing are steps with wrought iron handrail up to stepped forward six-panel door, glazed to top, with the inscription `CHAPEL HOUSE¿ carved into lintel. To first floor six/six-pane sash window and returned parapet and cornice. North east corner of chapel, part of house, three storey with six/six-pane sash window to second and ground floors and six/three-pane sash to first floor all with splayed reveals. South east corner, also part of house, has raised surround to six/six-pane sash window to second floor.
INTERIOR: Has open-well, open string staircase with turned balusters and swept mahogany handrail, and six-panel doors. Five-bay chapel to rear slightly wider with raised quoins, tall coped parapet and cornice, tall semicircular arched stone-mullioned three-light windows have interlacing tracery and hoodmoulds. Below right hand window of left return four flush panel door under flat hood. Lower two storey wing to rear of left return has coped parapet and cornice and two small square four-pane windows. Single storey hip-roofed range to front has castelled parapet and cornice over paired double doors flanked by triple colonnettes similar to front windows, with crown glass to Gothick-glazed ogee overlights. Door to right leads to lobby entrance with stairs to chapel, door to right leads to similar entrance to former Sunday school (qv). Similar wing to rear right has two quatrefoil attic windows over coved ground floor cornice. To left are steps up to six flush panel door, to right are four flush panel double doors with wreathed wrought iron rail to centre. Similar colonnettes flank doors.
INTERIOR OF CHAPEL: Virtually intact, with raised platform to rear, and coved apse to front, above window (to rear of chapel house) from which services could be observed. To each side are balconies on cast iron columns with cast iron balustrades, added probably early C19. Deep coved ceiling continues around apse; five-bay trussed roof above. Pulpit and lecterns supported on artificial stone eagles of 1765. Seating (late C19) removed as part of conversion to museum.
HISTORY: Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, a prominent champion of Methodism, built this chapel and adjoining house to protect residents and visitors from the evils of Bath society. The site was acquired in 1765. It became a preaching platform for George Whitfield (d.1770), the celebrated Calvinistic Methodist, who was her personal chaplain. He opened this chapel for her on 6th October 1765. She lived in the Chapel House from 1765 until her death in 1791 (Bath bronze plaque on exterior). Horace Walpole described the `very neat' interior in a letter to John Chute of 10 October 1766. The gallery was added in 1783: this increased the capacity to 750; the gallery underwent further change early in the C19. In later years the chapel housed the Trinity United Reformed Church; this merged with the Argyle St Chapel in 1981 and in 1983 the building passed to the Bath Preservation Trust in 1983. It was then renovated by Aaron Evans Associates; the Building of Bath Museum established by the Bath Preservation Trust was installed in 1992 (Michael Brawne and Associates, architects). The chapel is one of the finest architectural expressions of mid C18 religious enthusiasm.
SOURCES: B.G. Medd, `A Bicentenary Record, 1765-1965, Trinity Presbyterian Church formerly Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel, Vineyards Bath' (1965); Christopher Stell, 'An Inventory of Non-Conformist Chapels and Meeting-Houses in the South-West' (RCHME 1991), 162-64.
Listing NGR: ST7501365367
