High Pavement Chapel is a

redundant church A redundant church, now referred to as a closed church, is a church building that is no longer used for Christian worship. The term most frequently refers to former Anglican churches in the United Kingdom, but may also be used for disused churche ...

building in

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located south-east of Sheffield and nor ...

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...

, England. It is now the Pitcher and Piano

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

and is

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

. It was built as, and for most of its existence operated as, a Unitarian

place of worship A place of worship is a specially designed structure or space where individuals or a group of people such as a congregation come to perform acts of devotion, veneration, or religious study. A building constructed or used for this purpose is s ...

History

By August 1662, under the Act of Uniformity, two Nottingham ministers, John Whitlock and William Reynolds, had been deprived of their living at

St Mary's Church, Nottingham The Church of St Mary the Virgin is the oldest parish churchDomesday Book: A Complete Translation (Penguin Classics) of Nottingham, in Nottinghamshire, England. The church is Grade I listed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Spo ...

and a third, John Barret, of his at St Peter's; the three men left town to comply with the

Five Mile Act 1665 The Five Mile Act, or Oxford Act, or Nonconformists Act 1665 ( 17 Cha. 2. c. 2), was an act of the Parliament of England, passed in 1665 with the long title "An Act for restraining Non-Conformists from inhabiting in Corporations". It was one ...

. However, they continued to preach in the area, including houses in Nottingham's Bridlesmith Gate and Middle Pavement. This led to the foundation of a permanent chapel in High Pavement in 1690. By 1735 the congregation had established itself as liberal (in the tradition of

English Presbyterianism Presbyterianism in England is practised by followers of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism who practise the Presbyterian form of church government. Dating in England as a movement from 1588, it is distinct from Continental and Scotti ...

) and in 1802 as Unitarian. In 1758 the appointment of a new junior minister, Isaac Smithson, caused a schism. The senior minister withdrew to a new chapel in nearby Halifax Place. This schism lasted until 1775 when the two congregations merged. The original chapel was considerably rebuilt in 1805. In 1864 the congregation opened a daughter church, Christ Church, Peas Hill. This survived until 1932. The current building was opened in 1876, built to a design of the architect Stuart Colman, of Bristol. It was used as a place of worship for Unitarians until 1982. It was then converted into the Nottingham Lace Museum, but this venture proved financially unviable. The building was then converted to its current use, as a Pitcher and Piano public house. The current congregation, Nottingham Unitarians, affiliated with the

General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches The General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches (GAUFCC or colloquially British Unitarians) is the umbrella organisation for Unitarian, Free Christians, and other liberal religious congregations in the United Kingdom and Ire ...

, are now based nearby at 3 Plumptre Street, Nottingham NG1 1JL, a former lace factory where items of lace were finished.

Stained glass

* East window 1904, by Morris & Co., to designs by Philip Burne-Jones * North aisle war memorial window, 1925, by Kempe & Co * Sunday School memorial window, 1906, by Henry Holiday * North transept north window 1890, by H Enfield

Ministers

*John Whitlock, M.A. 1662–1708 *William Reynolds, M.A. 1662–1698 * John Barret, B.A. 1662–1713 *John Whitlock junior 1689–1723 *John Hardy 1714–1727 *Nathaniel Whitlock 1729–1739 * Obadiah Hughes 1728–1735 *Samuel Eaton, 0.0.1737–1759 *Joseph Evans 1754–1758 *Isaac Smithson 1758–1769 *John Milne 1759–1772 *Thomas Brushaw 1769–1772 * John Simpson 1772–1777 * George Walker, F.R.S. 1774–1798 *Nathaniel Philipps, D. D. 1778–1785 * Nicholas Clayton, LL.D. 1785–1795 *William Walters 1794–1806 *Robert Kell 1799–1801 *James Tayler 1802–1831 *John Grundy 1806–1811 * William Pitt Scargill 1811 *Richard Fry 1812–1813 *Joseph Hutton, LL.D. 1813–1816 *Henry Turner 1817–1822 *Benjamin Carpenter 1822·1860 *William Blazeby, B.A. 1859–1860 * Peter William Clayden 1860–1868 *Richard Acland Armstrong, B.A. 1869–1884 *James Harwood, B.A. 1884–1892 * William Edward Addis, M.A. 1892–1899 *Joseph Morgan Lloyd Thomas 1900–1912 *John Charles Ballantyne, M. A. 1913–1918 *Simon Jones, B.A. 1918–1934 *James Arnold Williams, B.A., B.D. 1934–1946 *Charles Gordon Bolam, B.A., B.D., M.A. 1946–

Organists

* Henry Farmer 1839 – 1879 *William Wright 1879 – 1894 (later organist of St Leodegarius Church, Basford, then

Christ Church, Cinderhill Christ Church, Cinderhill is a Grade II listed parish church in the Church of England in Cinderhill, Nottingham. History The church dates from 1856 and was constructed as a chapel of ease to St. Leodegarius Church, Basford. It was consecrate ...

) *Charles Lymn 1894 – 1914 – ???? *H. Freestone ca. 1916 *Charles Edward Blyton Dobson 1920 – 1925 *Wilfred Davies ca. 1960s

References in literature

The church is mentioned in '' Sons and Lovers'' by D.H. Lawrence, chapter 15. :Then, happening to go into the Unitarian Church one Sunday evening, when they stood up to sing the second hymn he saw her before him. The light glistened on her lower lip as she sang. She looked as if she had got something, at any rate: some hope in heaven, if not in earth. Her comfort and her life seemed in the after-world. A warm, strong feeling for her came up. She seemed to yearn, as she sang, for the mystery and comfort. He put his hope in her. He longed for the sermon to be over, to speak to her. The throng carried her out just before him.

References