| Description | Ripponden Congregational Church, Soyland (SE 03544 19311). Church and Sunday school built 1869.
'Church and attached Sunday School 1869. Rock faced stone, slate roof with tiled ridges. Main vessel aligned north south with gabled transept towards ritual east end and small hipped roofed vestry beyond. At ritual west end is a narthex with projecting porch under bell turret broached to an octagon with stone pyramidal roof. Early French Gothic. Windows of 2 pointed lights and to transept of 3 lights separated by colonnettes; unmoulded lancet bell openings. Rose window at ritual west end. Narthex formed of lean to roof supported by low arcade on coupled shafts. Porch swells on one side into a small apse with half conical roof. School attached to ritual east end, but with separate doorway abutting vestry, has gabled hipped roof broken by ½ dormer with 2 light pointed window'.
(English Heritage listed building description. Date listed 29/04/1982. http://list.english heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1232274. Web site accessed 26/07/2013).
The Zion Congregational Chapel was the subject of a planning application in 2001 for the 'Conversion of church to form 14 flats' (Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council planning application 01/01144/CON and 01/01145/LBC). The architects plans associated with this application have been retained by WYAAS (Philip S. Riley and Company, Chartered Building Surveyors. 2001. 'Zion Church, Oldham Road, Ripponden. Existing plans and sections').
Peter Thornborrow provided the consultation response. Thornborrow described the church as a mid Victorian non conformist church with a distinctive octagonal bell turret that is a local landmark. It is an interesting design with a massing formed by the gable transept close to the separately roofed Sunday school building. Some windows exhibit good quality carving particularly in the narthex and on the road side elevation. Thornborrow supported the conversion to residential use wishing to see the building retained as a feature of the urban fabric. The building merited a photographic recording prior to conversion to ensure a record of the churches appearance (Thornborrow, P.H. 2001. Consultation response to Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council planning application 01/01144/CON and 01/01145/LBC. Former Zion Congregational Church, Ripponden). |