GATEACRE CHAPEL (continued)

1723: The date on the Bell, and so - it may be presumed - the date of the original bell turret, reconstructed in

1719: The original layout had become too small for the congregation and the first idea seems to have been to build an addition on the South side (hence the purchase of an extra 12 yards of land to the South). But the alteration that was made was the raising of the roof by about 3 ft - traces of this can still be seen in the stonework - and the gallery was fitted at the West end.

1700: By the imaginative effort of thinking away all the changes we have listed we can now visualise the original building. It was a simple rectangle 45ft 6in by 33ft externally, 17ft high to the eaves, with two windows to the North, with segmental arched heads with plain keystones, about a foot higher than they are today. In each gable end wall, off centre, was a simple round arched doorway - the West one survives in apparently original condition (with original folding door ?) and maybe a segmental headed window centrally in the gable above it. On the South the 3 segmental headed windows were on the pattern of the lower one - probably with the intention not to allow sunlight to blind the preacher in the pulpit opposite. The roof was covered with stone flags and finished at either end with stone copings on the gables and, the only ornament, ball finials. Inside the building was austere, walls and flat ceiling white-washed, the pulpit in the middle of the long North wall, box pews along North, West and East walls and in a central block in front of the pulpit. The materials were good and the workmanship sound, but the finish very plain. It was a typical Nonconformist Chapel designed for as many as possible to hear the preacher and to see him.

Designers ? The Chapel records seen do not name a single architect, (except for the Lectern, a furnishing - not part of the story of the fabric - which was given in memory of Dorothy Nicholson (died 1893, aged 89) designed by "Mr Holme, architect, of Liverpool", -probably the F. U. Holme 1844-1913 whom we meet later today.) Until we have architects names for building and alterations our work is not complete, but now a further assault on the records should provide many names of architects.

continued . . .