Albemarle Baptist Church is a

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

church located on Albemarle Crescent, central

Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to: People * Scarborough (surname) * Earl of Scarbrough Places Australia * Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth * Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong * Scarborough, Queensland, su ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...

, England. It was designed in the

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style by the Bradford architect

Henry Francis Lockwood Henry Francis Lockwood (18 September 1811, Doncaster – 21 July 1878, Richmond, Surrey) was an influential English architect active in the North of England. Family Lockwood was from a successful Doncaster family. His grandfather, Joseph Lockw ...

, and opened in 1867.

History

The founding of Albemarle Church dates to 1863, when forty-one people separated themselves for worship. Under the

pastor A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and ...

ate and leadership of the Rev. James Lewitt, the church was built and opened on 23 July 1867. Its architect was

Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...

, who worked extensively for one of the church's

subscribers The subscription business model is a business model A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value,''Business Model Generation'', Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, and 470 practitioners f ...

Titus Salt Sir Titus Salt, 1st Baronet (20 September 1803 in Morley – 29 December 1876 in Lightcliffe), was a manufacturer, politician and philanthropist in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, who is best known for having built Salt's Mill, a la ...

, and whose former apprentice

Cuthbert Brodrick Cuthbert Brodrick FRIBA (1 December 1821 – 2 March 1905) was a British architect, whose most famous building is Leeds Town Hall. Early life Brodrick was born in the Yorkshire port of Hull where his father was a well-to-do merchant and shi ...

opened the

Grand Hotel A grand hotel is a large and luxurious hotel, especially one housed in a building with traditional architectural style. It began to flourish in the 1800s in Europe and North America. Grand Hotel may refer to: Hotels Africa * Grande Hotel Beir ...

in the same year. When in use after

consecration Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different grou ...

, a school building and caretaker's cottage were found to be needed, and were built adjacent by 1868. The church's organ, of 20 stops and 1,186 pipes, was installed in September 1870 by Booth of Wakefield for a cost of £360 (). It was reported that the sound quality was affected by the sound having to emerge through the low arches on two sides due to the organ filling the whole of its square recess. By the time Lewitt retired from the ministry, the Church had grown in membership from forty-seven to 183. The following ministers were the Revs. W. H. Tetley, W. T. Adey, W. J. Parker and Robert Wood. In 1892, the membership had increased to 343. New institutions were established, the school enlarged and

pew rent A pew () is a long bench (furniture), bench seat or enclosed box, used for seating Member (local church), members of a Church (congregation), congregation or choir in a Church (building), church, synagogue or sometimes a courtroom. Overview ...

s abolished. An incident in 1914 in which the church was struck by

lightning Lightning is a naturally occurring electrostatic discharge during which two electric charge, electrically charged regions, both in the atmosphere or with one on the land, ground, temporarily neutralize themselves, causing the instantaneous ...

led to the bursting of a lead gas pipe and the ignition of the gas. Albemarle Baptist Church, including the attached schoolroom, is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...

as a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

, having been designated on 12 January 1990. Grade II is the lowest of the three grades of listing, and is applied to "buildings that are nationally important and of special interest". The church and Albemarle Crescent, which includes a large grass area to the church's front, are in the heart of the Scarborough

Conservation area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...

. The church has benefited from repairs made under the Scarborough Squares Partnership Grants Scheme which ran 2006-11. This included rebuilding the top five metres of the

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...

and rebuilding the

tracery Tracery is an architecture, architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of Molding (decorative), moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the s ...

Description

The building is a classic small church of the Gothic Revival style. Constructed of dressed stone and white brick with ashlar dressings, the street front has a triple

arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vaul ...

ed entrance, with circular

pier image:Brighton Pier, Brighton, East Sussex, England-2Oct2011 (1).jpg, Seaside pleasure pier in Brighton, England. The first seaside piers were built in England in the early 19th century. A pier is a raised structure that rises above a body of ...

s and

respond A respond is a half-pier or half-pillar that is bonded into a wall and designed to carry the springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishi ...

s with foliate

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

s, and

polychromatic Polychrome is the "practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." The term is used to refer to certain styles of architecture, pottery or sculpture in multiple colors. Ancient Egypt Colossal statue ...

arches. The three sets of double doors have

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

, and single shallow

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

es flank the entranceway. To its left is a single

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural element are typical of Gothic church edifices of the earliest period. Lancet wi ...

, and to its right, three. The side

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parl ...

s each have four 2-light plate tracery lancets. The

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building withi ...

s have large single 4-light plate tracery windows. The

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

has three 2-light plate tracery windows. To the north east, the attached schoolroom has a canted south front with three 2-light plate tracery windows. Above is a large six-light pointed arch window with geometric tracery, which has to its right a triple lancet flanked by single blind lancets, topped by a quatrefoil pierced parapet. A small semi-circular

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

with a row of 7 upper lancets is to the left of the main window. Above that, the square tower has a pair of lancets, then a moulded string course, a bell stage with a single lancet to each face topped by a tall

crocket A crocket (or croquet) is a small, independent decorative element common in Gothic architecture. The name derives from the diminutive of the French ''croc'', meaning "hook", due to the resemblance of crockets to a bishop's crosier. Description ...

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

, and a stone octagonal spire rises several further metres. Internally, slender iron columns supporting the wooden roof divide the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and aisles. It is complete with 19th-century wooden

pew A pew () is a long bench (furniture), bench seat or enclosed box, used for seating Member (local church), members of a Church (congregation), congregation or choir in a Church (building), church, synagogue or sometimes a courtroom. Overview ...

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...

and

choir stalls A choir, also sometimes called quire, is the area of a church or cathedral that provides seating for the clergy and church choir. It is in the western part of the chancel, between the nave and the sanctuary, which houses the altar and Church tab ...

, and a tin-lined total immersion font. The seating can hold 800 people (as of 1890). Next to the church is a separately listed minister's cottage, also by Lockwood, in white brick and ashlar and in a similar Gothic style including a projecting gabled porch.

References

External links

Church website
{{Scarborough, North Yorkshire Baptist churches in Yorkshire Grade II listed churches in North Yorkshire Churches completed in 1867 Gothic Revival church buildings in England Buildings and structures in Scarborough, North Yorkshire