The new Battersea Chapel was built in 1972–3 to designs by Michael Manser Associates as the backdrop of a new pedestrian ‘Twentieth Century “Village Square”’. In a first sketch of 1967 the church was set in front of the hall, but in the executed building they come together in a single low composition of some force. Precisely square in outline and raised on a sloped podium, this is concrete-framed with blank, brick-faced walls, overhanging eaves to the flat roof and inclined clerestory windows at the back. Several of these features were calculated to discourage vandalism, already anticipated in the area: indeed the chapel was published under the headline ‘Vandal-Proof Baptist Chapel’. Internally, the main spaces are divided between a church and a hall for the Sunday school. The bench seating in the church (Manser had wanted chairs for flexibility) is arranged in arcs around the communion table.

Survey of London: Battersea pp. 121/122

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