SNN113686 - Historic Building Recording of Carey Memorial Baptist Church Hall, Nelson Street, Kettering, NN16 8QL

Pre-Construct Archaeology Limited was commissioned by Jas Somal, the owner, to carry out historic building recording of the former Carey Baptist Church Hall, Nelson Street, Kettering, NN16 8QL. The former late 19th century Carey Baptist Church Hall is not designated as a listed building, nor does it lie within a conservation area. The recording was undertaken following the completion of conversion works and sub-division into apartments. Planning permission (KET/2017/1033) for ‘Conversion of hall to create 7 no. dwellings, window & door alterations, removal of rooflights and internal alterations’ was approved in 2018 by Kettering Borough Council (now part of North Northamptonshire Council). The historic building recording was undertaken in order to fulfil a pre-commencement planning condition for historic building recording. The condition was placed on planning approval by Liz Mordue, Archaeological Advisor at North Northamptonshire Council. Carey Baptist Church Hall is a large brick-built hall, the west gable elevation of which fronts onto Nelson Road. This now has three ground floor doorways with more ornate doorways into the two side aisles and three first floor windows. To the rear of a gable parapet the pitched roof is covered in modern cement tiles, probably replacing original slate. The building is built to a depth of six bays with lower single storey lean-to aisles along each long elevation and a small, lower range adjoining to the rear (east). The Carey Memorial Baptist Church, built 1911, lies adjacent to the north and at the junction of Nelson Street and King Street. The historic building recording and documentary research focused upon the former Carey Memorial Baptist Church Hall, has revealed that it was originally completed in 1892 to the plans of Kettering based architect Mr H. A. Cooper. It was established by the Fuller Baptist Church to celebrate the centenary of the Baptist Missionary Society, which was founded by Carey and Fuller amongst others in Kettering in 1792. The Nelson Street mission chapel was built to serve an area of then ‘new’ Kettering, distant from the old and existing places of worship. It was the intention from the start that ‘as soon as the need show itself’ a larger chapel would be built on the adjoining plot (fronting King Street) and the existing Nelson Street chapel would be converted for use as a Sunday School. However due to the success of the chapel/school it became an imperative to expand and accordingly in 1895 a plot fronting Bath Road was acquired, and a new school constructed by the Kettering Co-operative Building and Contracting Society. The building scheme for a new chapel on King Street commenced in 1906, although due to the many years it took to raise the sum of £3,500 to cover construction costs, the foundation stones were not laid until 1911. Since the early 20th century, the former Sunday School/Church Hall has been subjected to a few alterations, with a rearrangement of the doorways in the front façade and the insertion of a lower ceiling within the hall, enclosing the clerestorey above. No evidence of the revolving shutters, used to create school classrooms within the side aisles, survive and they appear to have been removed by at least the 1990s as they do not appear in the centenary c.1994 photographs. The present Carey Memorial Baptist Church, the former Nelson Street Chapel and the former Sunday School in Bath Road, form an interesting group that together illustrate the activities of Baptist non-conformism in Kettering during the late 19th/early 20th century and the philanthropy of local industrialists who provided the land and funds to establish the schools and chapel. Accordingly, these buildings should be recognised for their historic contributions to the community and considered for their group value as undesignated heritage assets.