Congregational Chapel, Nantwich
grade II listed church in Nantwich, Cheshire East, Cheshire, England, UK
The Congregational Chapel, also known as the Independent Chapel, is a former Congregational or Independent church in Nantwich, Cheshire, England. It is located on Monks Lane (SJ 65297 52331), now a pedestrian walkway, opposite the Dysart Buildings and immediately north east of St Mary's Church. Built in 1841–42, with George Latham as the architect, it is listed at grade II. The chapel closed in the late 20th century, and the building has been converted to residential use.
History
Early visits from Nonconformist preachers were not welcomed in Nantwich. In 1753, John Wesley was "saluted with curses and hard names", while that same year, George Whitefield was met by angry crowds who tried to drive a bull into his audience, but were foiled when the animal fell into a pit.
A society of Independents was formed in 1780 by Captain Jonathan Scott (1735–1807), who started preaching in a coachmaker's shop on Barker Street with the Reverend William Armitage from Chester. Captain Scott was a prominent independent evangelist who had resigned his commission in the 7th Dragoons in 1769 to focus on missionary work, and was ordained in 1774 or 1776 as a "presbyter or teacher at large". Born in Shrewsbury and then living in Wollerton in Shropshire, Scott went on preaching tours across Shropshire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Lancashire and Wales during the 1770s. He is credited with involvement in the foundation of 22 Congregationalist churches. In 1794, Scott moved to Matlock in Derbyshire, but continued to preach in Nantwich every other Sunday.
“Congregational Chapel, Nantwich” enters the record as grade II listed church in Nantwich, Cheshire East, Cheshire, England, UK. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Congregational, Chapel and Nantwich can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 2, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5160706. Authority coordinates are 53.067, -2.519. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1841, 1753, 1780 and 1735.
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This entry incorporates text from “Congregational Chapel, Nantwich” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.