24 May 2019 updated : Marvellous fragment revealed recentlyish as part of the #WesleyChurch development in Lonsdale Street, a real palimpsest of change over time. It’s what’s left of the back wall of the church’s 1888 Meeting Hall, which was covered by the construction of the Nicholas Hall behind in the 1930s. The Meeting Hall was then replaced by a little office building in the 70s, leaving the back wall behind, and now itself demolished. They’re going to keep it, not sure in what form.

Update : as a wall of a little park, with a framework that I now realise is an outline of the Meeting Hall. Also, @aboderestoration has posted pics of new tracery, so I guess it will look neater and more complete, albeit not an actual window. The hall was going to be a restaurant, but now it’s going to be a co-working space. I’m averting my eyes from the giant office building now looming over everything.

29 October 2024

Unusual, noice, but actually I think a case of over restoration. It looked great, with missing bits, fainted paint and different bricks. Now it’s so tidied up it just looks like an odd wall decoration. Maybe it just couldn’t be kept as it was, maybe not waterproof ? But nice they kept it at all. An interesting that the huge framework is the outline of the vanished hall, not that anyone but be would know that. They’ve also reconstructed the bluestone and cast iron fence, only the posts by the central entrance had remained.

Abode has provided some explanation. They didn’t say not I think actually it was never a window, just some plaster tracery on an internal wall, so it had to be reproduced in something more durable. And the wall had to be repainted to be waterproof. But still, looked better before.

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