Patrick Comerford
As I walking back through Cambridge last week, I stopped briefly outisde Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church, almost opposite Emmanuel College, to learn about its history and architecture and to learn little more about the story of the Baptist presence in Cambridge.
The church, built in 1903-1904 at 40-43 Saint Andrew’s Street, replaced a previous chapel that had been built in 1836. But, as a plaque on the façade recalls, there has been a place of worship of some form on the site since 1689. The church predates the street from which it takes its name, has been led by a number of long-serving, distinguished ministers, and has its roots in the mid-17th century Puritans and dissenters.
During the Cromwellian era, the Puritans were triumphant in Cambridge and Anglican organisation had broken down. A report in 1649 showed that the parish of Saint Andrew the Less was the only one in Cambridge with a serving minister, although there were preachers at Great Saint Mary’s and Little Saint Mary’s.
The Independent congregations in Cambridge began to reorganise in the aftermath of the Caroline restoration in 1660, although evidence for those early meetings is sketchy. There are records of a meeting in a Widow Wilson’s house in Saint Andrew’s Street being broken up in 1665: the congregation escaped, but Wilson and the preacher, Thomas Dac, were caught and fined.
During the short-lived indulgence of Charles II in 1672, a licence was granted for a meeting house at Saint Andrew’s Hill or Hog Hill. Three years later, in 1675, there was a meeting in the house of Robert Wilson (1627-1710) in Saint Andrew’s parish. Wilson was a music teacher and one of the original trustees of the new meeting house built on Hog Hill, now Downing Place, in 1687.
Other conventicles or dissenting meetings about that time met in Green Street, facing onto Sidney Sussex College, and Bridge Street, and there were several other smaller meetings. The labels Presbyterian, Anabaptist and Independent were used loosely in those days and at times were interchangeable.
Joseph Hussey became the first pastor of the Great Meeting on Hog Hill around 1691, when the church had 76 members and called itself Presbyterian. When the pastor advocated ‘a more democratic form of church government’ in 1694, the meeting became Congregational, and the Presbyterian minority seceded in 1696.
When Hussey retired in 1719, the church had a congregation of 1,600 and 150 members. A period of disputes and secessions followed, due to personal and economic differences rather than doctrinal disputes. About 100 of the poorer members left the congregation with Richard Davis as their minister in 1721, while the richer majority remained in possession of the building with a pastor named Throgmorton.
A similar schism took place in 1735, and harmony was only restored during the ministry of J Conder (1738-1754). An attempt at a union with the Stoneyard Baptists failed in 1766, and by 1767 the meeting had again dwindled to 100. It was revived by Joseph Saunders (1767-1788), an ally of Charles Simeon, who attended his afternoon services.
Towards the end of Saunders’s ministry, a new meeting-house was built on the old site in Downing Place. Its windows were broken by rioters in 1792. The membership dwindled to 50 or so, partly because the Stoneyard Chapel had become more attractive under Robert Hall. After almost 200 years, the Downing Place chapel closed in 1874, and it was replaced by Emmanuel Church in Trumpington Street, opposite Pembroke College.
Meanwhile, the second migration from the Hog Hill meeting had led to the foundation of a Baptist community. The 100 poorer members who left in 1721 with Richard Davis as their leader rented a stable and granary in the Stoneyard, next to Hobson’s Spinning House on Saint Andrew’s Street, and formed their own meeting with over 130 members.
There were secessions in 1723 and 1725, reflecting divisions over the question of infant baptism. The seceders of 1725 returned in 1727, and there was a temporary recovery, but the meeting was almost extinct when the Revd Robert Robinson of Norwich accepted an invitation in 1759.
Robinson found the building ‘a damp, dark, cold, ruinous, contemptible hovel’ with a congregation of 34 people. But during his ministry, the Stoneyard meeting grew, the old buildings were pulled down in 1764 and they were replaced with a chapel that could seat 600 people.
Robinson was an inspiring preacher and a hymnwriter, and on Sunday evenings he could attract congregations of up to 200. He was a friend of Charles Simeon, despite their political differences, and of Joseph Priestley, and he made an eloquent but vain appeal for reunion with the Independents or Congregationalists of the Hog Hill meeting.
The Revd Robert Hall succeeded Robinson in 1791, and soon attracted such crowds that the chapel had to be enlarged to hold a congregation of more 800. In the early 19th century, village stations or local chapels were founded by the Saint Andrew’s Street Meeting at Coton and Barton, later chapels were founded in Mill Road, Arbury Road, East Road, Cherry Hinton and Cambridge Place, and the chapel was rebuilt in 1836 on the original site.
During the Great Famine in Ireland, one Sunday collection raised £236, ‘an enormous sum for a small place like this,’ and a second collection the following Sunday raised a further £264.
Charles Spurgeon, one of the most popular preachers of his day, preached in Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church twice, on 6 April and 8 August 1855.
The early 19th century chapel was replaced by Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church which was built in 1903-1904 at 40-43 Saint Andrew’s Street, on the site of earlier 18th and 19th century chapels.
The foundation stone was laid on 6 May 1903 by George Edward Foster (1840-1906) of Fosters’ Bank, Sidney Street. The new church was designed by the architects George Baines (1851-1934) and his son Reginald Palmer Baines (1879-1960) of G Baines and Son, who specialised in early 20th-century nonconformist churches and chapels. According to the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner this is ‘a good specimen’ of their work.
The Baines practice designed the church in a Neo-Perpendicular Gothic style, blending in some subtle Art Nouveau details. The church has a flint-faced exterior with stone dressings. The original spire appears to have been taken down soon after the church was built.
The interior retains side galleries and a prominent central oak pulpit that emphasises the traditional nonconformist focus on preaching.
The memorial window above and behind the choir stalls was erected to commemorate members of the congregation who died in World War I. The windows depict three figures from John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, symbolising three aspects of the Christian life: the centre light represents Freedom and shows Christian being set free from his burden of sin and guilt at the foot of the Cross; on the left is Truth represented by Mr Valiant-for-Truth; and on the right, Faithful is praying. The images above show the vision of the Celestial City of God, with pilgrims moving towards it.
An additional plaque records those who died in World War II.
The pews were removed and replaced by chairs in 2011 to create a more versatile space.
After what have been described as a couple of recent ‘bumps in the road’, the church became mistakenly known as a ‘difficult church’. In response, the Revd Steve Langford was appointed as interim minister with the task of preparing the church for the next long-term minister.
Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church became involved in a ministry to the homeless, and in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the church opened its kitchens and cooked up to 100 meals a day for people living in temporary accommodation and hostels. At the same time, the church moved online and it continues to run ‘hybrid’ services.
In 2021 the church entered a partnership with Cambridge Youth for Christ to redevelop part of the church centre, known as No 40, into a drop-in and well-being centre for young people. The church ‘stepped up’ again in 2022 when it opened the church centre for English language classes Ukrainian refugees.
Saint Andrew’s Street Baptist Church is between the Mandela House City Council building and the Regal Pub/Arts Cinema, close to Downing and Emmanuel Colleges. The Revd Simon Cragg has been the Senior Minister since March 2025. He is from Cambridge and studied at the London School of Theology. The Revd Chris Duffett is the ‘Artist-in-Residence’.
Sunday services begin at 10:45 am with a time of musical worship, prayers and a sermon. There is Communion on the first Sunday of every month.
