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Summary

Baptist chapel built in Gold Street in 1861. Architect Edward Sharman of Wellingborough. 2 storeys. Ashlar. Band between storeys. 1st floor has group of 4 round headed windows divided by Lombardic colonnettes and with keystones reaching up to frieze of coloured tiles. Pediment with round window. Ground floor has 3 bay projecting porch each bay with a Lombardic round arch and columns. Coloured tiles to arch.

Monument Types

• BAPTIST CHAPEL (Built 1861, Modern - 1861 AD (throughout) to 1861 AD (throughout))

Protected Status

• Listed Building (II) 1051655: Fuller Baptist Church
• Conservation Area: Kettering conservation area

Associated Finds - None

Associated Events

• Listed Buildings Survey (Ref: 8877024)
• DOE LISTING: GOLD STREET (Ref: 8678038)
• Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey (Industrial/Modern Period), 1998-9
• Ordnance Survey Mapping (First Edition 25 Inch Survey) (Ref: 7968001)
• Ordnance Survey Mapping (Second Edition) (Ref: 7968002)
• Ordnance Survey Mapping (Third Edition) (Ref: 7968003)

Full description

{1} [Former list description] 1861. Architect Edward Sharman of Wellingborough. 2 storeys. Ashlar. Band between storeys. 1st floor has group of 4 round headed windows divided by Lombardic colonnettes and with keystones reaching up to frieze of coloured tiles. Pediment with round window. Ground floor has 3 bay projecting porch each bay with a Lombardic round arch and columns. Coloured tiles to arch; steps up. Cornice overall. Interior has 3 sided gallery supported on iron pillars; panelled fronts. Ceiling with coved sides divided into rectangular panels, raised up centre also coved and panelled with tie beams across beneath it. Mahogany fittings. Nos 47 to 51 (odd) Fuller Baptist Church and Church Hall form a group with the Tomb of Andrew Fuller.

{3} Baptist Chapel (Fuller), Gold Street
Stone building erected in 1769 and enlarged in 1805. School rooms, burial ground and house and garden for the minister associated with the chapel. Also has 4 cottages. The current building was erected in 1861 by architect Edward Sharman of Wellingborough. The structure is a listed building of very elaborate design. Use of stained glass, stone columns, coloured tiles etc. Still in use as a Baptist chapel. Film 3, photo 19. The associated Sunday School has been demolished.

{4} An application made to destroy a small brick kitchen addition which was 'not an integral part of the fine Victorian structure of the church' was not opposed.

{5}Built 1861 by architect, Edward Sharman of Wellingborough. 2 storeys.

{6} Stained glass- a portrait medallion of Andrew Fuller, co-founder of the Baptist Mission.

{10}Building listed 1861. Graveyard includes Rev. Fuller who died 1815. This implies earlier baptist church on the site?

{11, 12} History
The historic core of Kettering centres around St Peter and St Paul church, Market Place to its north-west, and the immediate network of streets around it. Originally a Saxon village and later a market town, Kettering was for much of its history a relatively small linear settlement comprising what are now Gold Street, the High Street, Market Street, and Market Place. This core layout of medieval streets persists today, though the majority of the surviving buildings date from the C19 and early C20. Kettering was at the convergence of several important routes and benefited from this and from the wool industry, but it was the arrival in 1857 of the Midland Railway which enabled larger industries, particularly the boot and shoe-making industry, to expand the town significantly beyond its historic core. The wider town is still characterised by numerous former factories and associated terraced housing.

The site of Fuller Baptist Church has been developed since at least the C16. Buildings probably existed on this site from the early days of the Saxon settlement. Maps from the 1720s show this area of Gold Street densely occupied, with some buildings extending to the rear on long narrow plots.

In 1769 the first Baptist church was erected on this site, in a complex that also comprised: school rooms, a burial ground (which survives to the north-east of the church), a house and garden for the minister and four cottages. The C18 church was enlarged in 1805. The Reverend Andrew Fuller, after whom the church was named, was pastor from 1783 to his death in 1815 and was buried in the adjacent burial ground. He was a noted theologian and missionary and was friends with William Carey, another nonconformist minister with connections to Kettering. He helped Carey found the Baptist Missionary Society. In 1861 the previous church was demolished and the current one built to replace it, to the designs of Edward Sharman. The first 25” OS map of Kettering (surveyed in 1884) shows that the completed church building also had a narrower lateral wing which extended east from the rear wall.

By 1924 an extension and a small porch had been added to the south side of the lateral rear wing (behind 59-65 Gold Street), opening into the lane to the east of the church. By the same date, a small extension had been built to the north of the lateral wing, projecting into the burial ground. Since 1968 the northern extension has been replaced by a new block. The associated Sunday School to the west of the chapel was demolished sometime after 1968.

Details
A Baptist chapel of 1861 to designs by Edward Sharman.

MATERIALS: dressed limestone decorated with coloured terracotta tiles to the principal (south) elevation. Flanking elevations are of yellow stock bricks on an ironstone rubblestone plinth, with limestone dressings. Windows with stained glass detail feature on all elevations. The church has a pitched slate roof.

PLAN: the chapel is rectangular on plan facing south onto Gold Street. A lateral range to the rear runs roughly west to east.

EXTERIOR: the building is of three storeys, with a pitched roof. A small cylindrical spirelet with a cone-shaped roof rises from a square plinth at the centre of the ridge of the roof. The principal (south) elevation has a three-bay projecting porch with round arches supported on chamfered square columns flanked by colonnettes. The arches are embellished with coloured tiles with a diamond motif. Within the porch, more coloured tiles highlight three round arches, surrounding panelled timber doors to left and right, and a stained glass window to the centre. A moulded plat band formed of decorated terracotta tiles divides the ground and first-floor storeys. The first floor has a group of four round-headed windows divided by paired colonnettes and ornamented with keystones beneath a frieze of coloured tiles. The windows are embellished with coloured glass. The third storey forms a triangular pediment. A central round window with carved embellishments occupies the centre of the pediment.

The east and west elevations are of yellow stock brick on an ironstone rubblestone plinth topped with a limestone moulding, with moulded ‘special’ bricks adorning the windows. There are five bays, separated by stepped brick pilasters. At ground floor, there is one window in each bay, topped with segmental arches with ogee-moulded bricks above and toothed brick detail below. The windows are each in two panes ornamented with stained glass. At first floor level, each bay has a pair of round-arched windows, again in two panes ornamented with stained glass.

The early-C20 extension to the east at the rear is of two storeys in yellow stock brick in an arts and crafts style. Its windows have segmental arches with ogee mouldings, mirroring the church building. The windows have substantial timber mullions and transoms and simple leaded lights. The west elevation facing the access lane has two bays, with three-over-three and one-over-one windows. The south elevation has two bays each with three-over-three windows.

INTERIOR: The previous list description (dated 21 November 1974) described a three-sided gallery with panelled fronts supported on iron pillars. The ceiling with coved sides is divided into rectangular panels, raised up centre also coved and panelled with tie beams across beneath it. Mahogany fittings. It is also understood that the church contains a stained glass medallion of Andrew Fuller.

<1> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 1/22 (checked) (Digital archive). SNN102353.

<2> 1976, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest ("Greenback"), H15 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN100754.

<3> List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, P. 3 (Catalogue). SNN46018.

<4> Brown A.E. (Editor), 1976, Archaeology in Northamptonshire 1975, P. 206 (Journal). SNN169.

<5> Mackenzie, D., Discovering 'Fuller': Fuller baptist Church, Gold Street, Kettering, (unchecked) (Leaflet). SNN106603.

<6> Bailey, B, Pevsner, N, and Cherry, B, 2013, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, p. 358 (Book). SNN111989.

<7> Billows, J., 1985, Andrew Fuller and his church at Kettering, (unchecked) (Leaflet). SNN106602.

<8> Mackenzie, D., Discovering 'Fuller': Fuller baptist Church, Gold Street, Kettering, (unchecked) (Leaflet). SNN106603.

<9> The Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, 1986, Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting-Houses: Northamptonshire & Oxfordshire, p. 141 (Report). SNN2902.

<10> Ballinger J., 1999, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Kettering (Industrial), (unchecked) (Digital archive). SNN100283.

<11> Historic England (formerly English Heritage), Ongoing, National Heritage List for England, Accessed 04/10/2023 (Website). SNN107872.

<12> Historic England, 2023, Case Name: HS HAZ Major Enhancement Pilot: Fuller Baptist Church, Kettering (Designation Advice Report). SNN115513.

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