page_title: Bethesda Methodist Chapel, Hanley
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Bethesda Methodist Chapel, Hanley / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: Bethesda Methodist ChapelThis is a photo of listed building number 1195821.
context_page_description: Bethesda Methodist Chapel is a disused Methodist chapel, in Hanley, Staffordshire, England. Once one of the largest Nonconformist chapels outside London, the building has been known as the "Cathedral of the Potteries", being "one of the largest and most ornate Methodist town chapels surviving in the UK".
  The first Methodist chapel on the site was built by the Methodist New Connexion in the late 18th century. Finding the building too small for their growing membership, the congregation replaced it with the current building in 1819, to the designs of a local amateur architect. The chapel is built over two stories and is in the Italianate style, with further work to expand the building completed in 1859 and 1887. It became a Grade II* listed building in 1972. By the end of the 20th century, the building had deteriorated and the congregation had decreased considerably; it was closed for active worship in 1985. After passing through a number of owners, it was acquired by the Historic Chapels Trust in 2002 and is undergoing an extensive restoration scheme.
context_section_description: The brick chapel is built in an Italianate style with a stuccoed facade and a slate roof. According to Nikolaus Pevsner, the Methodists chose this style of architecture "in order not to look Anglican." Its ground floor is rusticated and has a single-storey portico, extending along the full length of the chapel frontage. This consists of a heavy cornice supported on pairs of fluted Corinthian columns. Over the portico, in the centre of the upper storey, is a Venetian window, with two sash windows on each side. At the summit of the frontage is a central pedimented gable. On each side of this is a massive decorated cornice. The building extends back for five bays, and at the rear is a shallow curved apse. The rear of the building is built in Flemish bond brickwork.
  Immediately inside the entrance there is a vestibule, with stairs on either side leading up to the gallery. Inside the main body of the chapel is a continuous tiered gallery carried on cast iron columns.
caption: The Flemish bond brickwork can be seen at the rear of the chapel
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