OTHER CHURCHES
The churches in this chapter are arranged in chronological order of their appearance in Chester.
Huguenots (fn. 1)
Many Protestant refugees from France and the Rhenish Palatinate passed through Chester in the late 17th
and the early 18th century en route for Ireland, (fn. 2)
notably a party of over 3,000 Palatines who arrived
in the city during a three-week period in 1709 and
were assisted by the Presbyterian minister Matthew
Henry. (fn. 3) Others were in transit in 1713–14. (fn. 4) Some
must have stayed, at least for a few years, since there
was a French church at Chester in the 1710s. Jacques
Denis was its minister in 1713, (fn. 5) but left for Ireland
to serve the French church at Waterford in 1716. (fn. 6)
His successor at Chester was M. Cortail, who was
granted a royal pension in 1717 for the duration of
his tenure. (fn. 7) The congregation was evidently conformist and its ministers presumably held services
in one of the city churches.
Unitarians
Unitarian beliefs took hold in Trinity Street, at Matthew Henry's chapel (originally Presbyterian) in the
mid 18th century and the remaining Trinitarians
seceded in 1768 to a new Congregational church. (fn. 8) By
1778 the number of Unitarians had greatly declined, (fn. 9)
and in 1822 the congregation, though 'highly respectable', was still small. (fn. 10) Maintenance of the minister,
chapel, and Sunday school was assisted by charities
established in 1640 and 1797. (fn. 11) The congregation
remained small in the mid 19th century, (fn. 12) when the
morning service on Census Sunday 1851 was attended
by 102 adults and children. (fn. 13)
The Unitarians, as in other towns, were socially
select, drawn from leading families in business and
the professions, including the Frosts, the Moulsons
(tobacco manufacturers), the Woods (of the anchor
works at Saltney), the Brasseys (ironmongers), and the
Johnsons (of the Hydraulic Engineering Co.). (fn. 14) Their
wealth allowed for frequent improvements to the
chapel, notably in 1862 when it was virtually rebuilt
with a new front facing Trinity Street. (fn. 15) In 1902 the
chemicals magnate and M.P. Sir John Brunner, Bt., a
chapel trustee, paid for windows commemorating
Matthew Henry and the prominent Unitarian James
Martineau (d. 1900), and the galleries were rearranged
in 1908. (fn. 16) The minister for much of the later 19th
century, J. K. Montgomery (1860–96), was an influential figure in the city, notably in educational matters. (fn. 17)
He introduced a congregational form of chapel government, an issue over which his predecessor had been
forced to resign. (fn. 18)
In 1962 the chapel was closed for demolition during
the redevelopment of the city centre, and the congregation worshipped at no. 16 Upper Northgate Street, (fn. 19)
before building a new church to an uncompromising
modernist design in the middle of a new housing estate
at Blacon, but incorporating many of the fittings from
Trinity Street, including the pulpit of 1700 and
Brunner's windows. It opened in 1965 with the old
name of Matthew Henry's chapel. (fn. 20) By the mid 1980s
the dwindling congregation was unable to maintain the
building, which it sold in 1989 to an evangelical
church. (fn. 21) The Unitarians continued to meet fortnightly
under the name of the Matthew Henry Fellowship,
alternating between Stanley Palace and Waverton
village hall, and in 1995 shared a minister with the
Unitarian church at West Kirby and had c. 15 members. (fn. 22)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
A Mormon evening service in Chester on Census
Sunday 1851 drew 250 people, one of the largest
gatherings anywhere in England in relation to the
city's size. Morning and afternoon services were
attended by 30 members. (fn. 23) The branch probably
faded away through emigration to Utah. Services
were again being held in 1908, over a shop in Northgate Street, with baptisms at the corporation baths, (fn. 24)
but again they did not last. A third missionary effort
resulted in the establishment of a church c. 1961. It met
initially in the Newgate Street assembly rooms, from
c. 1964 at Stanley Palace, and in 1965 built a church in
Clifton Drive, Blacon. Before 1965 baptisms were held
in the corporation baths, and later in the church at
Rhyl (Flints.). The Chester branch was large enough by
c. 1967 to have its own bishop, and in 1995 had c. 350
members and an average attendance of c. 110. (fn. 25)
Catholic Apostolic Church
Members of the Catholic Apostolic church worshipped
in a room over the post office in St. John Street before
opening a church seating 250 in 1868 at the corner of
Lorne Street and Church Street, off Garden Lane. The
church, designed in an Early English style by O. Ayliffe
of Manchester, was built of red brick with bands of
blue brick and stone and had mostly lancet windows
with a traceried west window and a west porch (Fig.
102, p. 182). The congregation had its own priest, (fn. 26)
who held daily services in 1871. (fn. 27) The church was
evidently still meeting in 1941 (fn. 28) and probably disbanded in 1946, when the registration was cancelled. (fn. 29)
The building was sold in 1952 and demolished to make
way for the inner ring-road in 1964. (fn. 30)
Figure 102:
Catholic Apostolic Church, 1964
Protestant Episcopal Church
The Revd. Dr. Tudor Rogers, editor of The Protestant, a
magazine 'established to oppose ritualism and sacerdotalism', was minister of a congregation in Chester
calling itself Emmanuel Protestant Episcopal Church,
an 'unattached Church of England', which registered
the Music Hall for worship in 1883 and moved to
Pepper Street in 1885 but evidently disbanded in
1887. (fn. 31)
Swedenborgians (New Jerusalem
Church)
The New Church formed a congregation in Chester in
1900 after two years of occasional lectures. The church
at first rented a room in the Temperance Hall in
George Street, then an old chapel in Victoria Road
from 1906 to 1927, when it opened a small brick
church in Newton at the corner of Brook Lane and
Dickson's Drive. The site was said at the time to be
ideal for the church's members, implying that they
were largely drawn from the newer suburbs to the
north of the city. It had a resident minister from 1936
(sometimes shared with Wallasey) and remained at
Dickson's Drive in 2000. (fn. 32)
Figure 103:
Christadelphian meeting room, Egerton Street, 1964
Spiritualists
The First Spiritualist Church registered the former
Salvation Army barracks in Commonhall Street for
services in 1908, putting up a new church in the
same street in 1956. (fn. 33) It was still there in 2000.
A second group had a Spiritualist Temple in Brook
Street by 1912, which was called a Christian Spiritualist
church in the 1940s and was registered as a church and
healing sanctuary in 1982. (fn. 34) In 1995 it operated as the
Spiritualist Psychic Centre and Healing Sanctuary in
rooms over a shop. (fn. 35)
A third Spiritualist church in Egerton Street, presumably occupying the old mission hall, was recorded
only between 1934 and 1941. (fn. 36)
First Church Of Christ, Scientist
Christian Scientists were meeting in Chester by 1908
and began public services at no. 68 Watergate Street in
1909 or 1910. They formed a society in 1921 and a
separate church in 1926. Meetings were held in Pepper
Street 1925–36, at Forest House in Love Street 1936–40, and in rooms above the Falcon cafe in Lower Bridge
Street 1940–7. The church bought the elementary
school behind St. Olave's church in 1946, and began
holding services there in 1947. Another church was
recorded in Hough Green in the 1960s. There were
reading rooms at premises in St. Werburgh Street in
1940, a house in White Friars later in the 1940s, no. 3
Newgate Street in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and
the redeveloped Pepper Row from the mid 1960s until
1993, when they were moved to the church building in
St. Olave Street. (fn. 37)
Christadelphians
A meeting room in the Masonic Hall at no. 2 Queen
Street was in use from the mid 1920s (fn. 38) and moved to
the old mission hall in Egerton Street in 1950 (Fig.
103), (fn. 39) which was rebuilt in 1985 (fn. 40) and where the
Chester Christadelphian Ecclesia still advertised
weekly meetings in 2000. (fn. 41)
Jehovah's Witnesses
The Jehovah's Witnesses who congregated in Chester
in the later 1930s were drawn from an area extending
as far as Mold (Denb.) and Deeside (Flints.). They met
successively at no. 68 Watergate Street (formerly used
by Christian Scientists), Eastgate Street, where a Kingdom Hall was registered in 1941, and a room in no. 3
Lower Bridge Street. Separate churches were later
formed in Mold and Deeside, and the Chester group
was itself large enough eventually to form three congregations, each numbering c. 100 in 1995. Northgate
and Blacon congregations met separately in the Kingdom Hall purpose-built in Melbourne Road, Blacon, in
1969, and the Saltney congregation in its own Kingdom Hall in Boundary Lane, opened in 1990. (fn. 42)
Greek Orthodox
Orthodox services were begun in 1985 at the Anglican
mission church of St. Barnabas, Sibell Street, by the
Community of St. Barbara the Great Martyr. In 1987
they moved to the Anglican cemetery chapel at Overleigh, where in 1995 the liturgy was conducted in
English and Greek three times a month for a congregation mainly composed of English converts but also
including Greeks, Russians, and Romanians. (fn. 43) Similar
services continued weekly in 2000.