Seven more churches in Leicester that might go on my list of places to visit

Figures above the west door of the former Church of Saint John the Divine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Over the past few weeks, I have been posting about the many places of worship and associated with belief systems that I have visited or seen during my visits to Leicester last month.

They have included Leicester Cathedral, Church of England parish churches, churches in the Baptist, Congregational, Methodist and Orthodox traditions, Quaker meeting houses, synagogues, mosques, Hindu, Jain and Sikh places of worship, and the Secular Hall.

But my one-day visits to Leicester last wmon theek were fleeting and far too short to get to visit all the places I was interested in. Some I managed to photograph, and I have started to put together a list of churches and other places of worship I saw from the outside and that I may consider searching out on future visits.

Saint Nicholas Church is said to be the oldest place of worship in Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

1, Saint Nicholas Church, Saint Nicholas Circle:

Saint Nicholas Church, said to be the oldest place of worship in Leicester, is next to the Jewry Wall, a remnant of Roman masonry, to the east is the site of the Roman forum. Saint Nicholas Church is on Saint Nicholas Circle, just off Vaughan Way, part of the city’s inner ring road, and is the official church of the University of Leicester.

The church was built on a pre-Christian religious site. There are Roman tiles in the tower, and the Roman pillars in the churchyard came from the nearby Forum or Basilica. However, this does not mean it was a Roman church. Leicester was an important Roman town, and the tiles were taken from ruins there in Anglo-Saxon times, while the Roman pillars were used as grave markers before the advent of gravestones.

The Roman pillars in Saint Nicholas churchyard came from the nearby Forum or Basilica (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

It has been suggested that an Anglo-Saxon minster on the same site was the cathedral of the early Diocese of Leicester (679-874), and the current church may contain some material from this building.

The church was consecrated in 879, and parts of the church fabric date from ca 880 AD, with an architectural survey suggesting possible Roman building work. There are two Anglo-Saxon window openings inside the church. These were formerly outside windows, but the church was later extended. The church retains almost all of the original nave and crossing tower. The tower is Norman.

The church was in an extremely poor condition by 1825, and plans were made for its demolition. Instead, due to lack of funds to build the planned replacement church, it was extensively renovated in 1875-1884, including the building of a new north aisle.

Renovation continued into the 20th century. A 15th-century octagonal font from the redundant Church of Saint Michael the Greater, Stamford, was moved to Saint Nicholas. The porch was brought from the original Wyggeston’s Hospital, founded in the 16th century by William Wyggeston, who was Mayor of both Leicester and Calais.

Saint Nicholas was a city centre church without a large residential parish by the 1950s, when Saint Nicholas was allocated for the spiritual needs of local university students.

Saint Nicholas has become an Inclusive Church, with a mission to welcome people of diverse sexualities, identities, abilities, origins, and socioeconomic situations. Saint Nicholas is open for worship, and is normally open to visitors on Saturdays.

The site of the chapel of Saint Ursula’s Hospitalor Wyggeston’s Hospitalatf the Leicester Cathedral Gardens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

2, Saint Ursula’s Chapel, Wyggeston’s Hospital:

The chapel of Saint Ursula’s Hospital, commonly called Wigston’s Hospital, or Wyggeston’s Hospital, once stood on the site of the Leicester Cathedral Gardens. The hospital was founded by letters patent in 1513 and 1514. The chapel and the adjoining almshouse were demolished almost 150 years ago in 1875.

The site of the chapel and the hospital was revealed in 2013 and 2014 when archaeologists from the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) carried out a series of watching briefs while the Cathedral Gardens were being laid out as a new public open space to the south and west of Leicester Cathedral. As part of this development, ground-works were undertaken within both the graveyard of Leicester Cathedral and the Saint Martin’s House carpark.

The hospital was named after its main benefactor and founder, William Wyggeston (1472-1536), a wool merchant and three times mayor of Leicester and an MP for the Borough. The hospital facing Saint Martin’s Church and churchyard included an almshouse, a great hall, a chapel dedicated to Saint Ursula, and a master’s house.

The hospital was to be called ‘the Hospital of William Wigston, Junior’, and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Katherine and Saint Ursula and her Companions. The chaplains were to be appointed by the founder or his brother Thomas, a canon of Newarke College who died in 1537, during their lives, and then by the Dean and Chapter of Newarke College, the Mayor and Justices, and the Abbot of Leicester.

The chapel had a considerable quantity of painted glass, most of which was removed at the beginning of the 19th century to Ockbrook parish church in Derbyshire. Some of the windows were blocked up at the same time. The chapel also contained the tombs and monuments of several of the masters and confraters, including the first master, William Fisher.

The old hospital was vacated in April 1868 but the building remained standing until 1875. However, the archaeological excavations found no evidence of the remains of Saint Ursula’s Chapel or the great hall that once fronted onto Peacock Lane and adjoined the main hospital building.

The former Church of Saint John the Divine was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1854-1855 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

3, Saint John’s Chambers, Ashwell Street:

Saint John’s Chambers facing onto Ashwell Street is the former Church of Saint John the Divine, a former parish church designed in 1854-1855 by Sir George Gilbert Scott and converted into apartments late 1980s. It is close Victoria Park and Leicester train station.

Saint John the Divine was a good example of his style and was one of the first Leicester churches to be built following what are known as ecclesiological principles. The interior was built with arcades of round piers and foliage capitals, and included stained glass windows by William Wailes and a wrought-iron screen made in 1903 by CH Lohr.

The west front of Saint John’s Chambers facing onto Ashwell Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The church was mainly in the style of ca 1300 that Scott favoured, although that character is now compromised by modern window frames and skylights in the steep roof. The church was redundant by the 1980s and was converted to apartments in the late 1980s.

The west front, facing Ashwell Street, has an elaborate doorway with nook shafts, below a band of five cusped lancets, and a rose window in the gable. The aisles have pointed windows with modern domestic window frames. The three-stage tower has angle buttresses and a north-east polygonal turret. The plain parapet was added in the 1950s when the spire was removed.

Saint James the Greater … Henry Langton Goddard was influenced by Torcello Cathedral and churches in Venice and Florence (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

4, Saint James the Greater Church, London Road:

Saint James the Greater is a Grade II* listed church south of the city centre, on the London Road and opposite Victoria Park. The church was founded as a daughter church of Saint Peter’s Church, Leicester, in 1881, when a temporary wooden church was built. A decade later, the decision was made to build a permanent church due to the growth in the congregation.

The church was designed by the Leicester architect, Henry Langton Goddard. The Bishop of Peterborough, Mandell Creighton, wanted the new church to be impressive architecturally, reflecting its status in Leicester. On his advice, Goddard visited several churches in northern Italy.

Following that visit, Goddard’s external design for Saint James was influenced by Torcello Cathedral on the Venetian lagoon and its interior decor by churches in Venice and Florence. The foundation stone was laid on 28 October 1899, and the building was consecrated on 25 July 1901.

The interior of Saint James the Greater … an image on the noticeboard across the road from the church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The west front of the church was completed between 1911 and 1914 and was dedicated by Creighton’s successor Edward Carr Glyn, Bishop of Peterborough, on 24 September 1914. Saint James the Greater became a parish in its own right on 25 June 1918.

The Diocese of Leicester considered closing the church in the 1950s due to falling numbers. However, the Revd Lawrence Jackson, who was appointed to the parisin 1959, managed to bring people back to the church through his remarkable ministry. The church had one of the largest congregations in the diocese by the time Lawrence moved to Coventry in 1965.

Saint James the Greater continues to have an active congregation. It hosts a variety of events, has two church halls and remains one of Leicester’s best-known churches.

Holy Cross Priory is a priory of the Order of Preachers or Dominicans (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

5, Holy Cross Priory:

Holy Cross Priory is a Roman Catholic priory of the Order of Preachers or Dominicans. The Dominicans first came to Leicester in 1247, establishing a priory at Saint Clements Church in the north-west corner of the old city walls in the reign of Henry III. Blackfriars in Leicester was dissolved during the Tudor reformation in 1538, along with the other Dominican houses in England.

The Dominicans were absent from Leicester for more than 280 years, but returned to the city in 1819. The first public building on New Walk was a Roman Catholic chapel built in 1819 on the site of what is now Holy Cross Priory. However, Holy Cross was not established as a Dominican priory until 1882.

The west door of Holy Cross Priory … the foundation stone was laid in 1929 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

By 1929, the church had become too small and Father Vincent McNabb began to raise money for a new, larger church. The foundation stone was laid in 1929, the choir and transepts of the church were completed by 1931, and the High Altar was consecrated in 1931. The church was finally completed and formally consecrated in 1958.

The friars have ministries in the University of Leicester, De Montfort University and Leicester Royal Infirmary and also at Blackfriars, Oxford.

Saint Stephen’s Church was moved stone-by-stone to New Walk in 1891 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

6, Saint Stephen’s United Reformed Church:

Saint Stephen’s Church is a 19th century church in New Walk, on the corner of De Montfort Street and overlooking De Montfort Square. It is notable as ‘the church that moved.’ It was originally built where Leicester Railway Station now stands, but when the present building replaced the earlier Campbell Street Station in 1891, the church was moved stone by stone to its present New Walk location.

The architect James Tait (1834-1915) also built a Sunday School centenary building, now a bar, in New Walk. He also designed nearby Clarendon Park Congregational Church.

Saint Stephen’s was first built as a Presbyterian church, and became a United Reformed church when the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists came together to form the United Reformed Church.

The spire of Saint Stephen’s, together with the trees in De Montfort Square and Robert Hall’s Statue, make a fine contribution to Leicester’s streetscape.

Clarendon Park Congregational Church decided to remain outside the United Reformed Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

7, Clarendon Park Congregational Church, London Road:

The Clarendon Park Congregational Church is on London Road in the Stoneygate area, near Clarendon Park. The Bond Street chapel once shared by Congregationalists and Presbyterians became a Unitarian chapel in the late 18th century. After that, the first Congregational church in Leicester was built in 1801, and many others were built in the 19th century, including the church on Oxford Street, which is now a Jain Temple.

The Clarendon Park Congregational Church was also designed by James Tait and built in 1886. It is built of granite rubble with ashlar dressings and a roof of red tiles, and is a designated Grade II listed building.

The church is part of the Congregational Federation, formed in 1972 by Congregational churches that did not enter the union of the Presbyterian Church of England with the Congregational Church in England and Wales to form the United Reformed Church.

The west door of Clarendon Park Congregational Church, London Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Other churches in this series:

Church of England:

1, Leicester Cathedral (22 May 2024)

2, Saint Mary de Castro (26 May 2024)

3, Saint George’s Church, former Church of England, now Serbian Orthodox (2 June 2024)

Baptist:

4, Central Baptist Church, Charles Street (8 June 2024)

Congregationalist:

5, (Former) Congregationalist Church, Oxford Street (23 May 2024)

Methodis

6, Bishop Street Methodist Church (6 June 2024)

Society of Friends (Quakers):

7, (Former) Quaker Meeting House, Prebend Street (25 May 2024)

8, Quaker Meeting House and Drayton House, Queen’s Road (25 May 2024)

Unitarian:

9, Great Meeting Place, Broad Street (1 June 2024)

Jewish synagogues:

10, Leicester Hebrew Congregation Synagogue, Highfield Street (24 May 2024)

11, Leicester Progressive Jewish Congregation, Avenue Road (31 May 2024)

Islam:

12, Masjid Umar mosque (1 April 2011)

Hindu:

13, Iskcon (‘Hare Kishna’) temple, Granby Street (5 June 2024)

14, Shree Geeta Bhavan Temple and Hindu Community Centre, Clarendon Park Road (5 June 2024)

15, Shree Sanatan Mandir, Weymouth Street (2 March 2011)

16, Shirdi Sai Baba Temple, Colton Street (5 June 2024)

Jains

17, Jain Temple (former Congregational Church), Oxford Street (23 May 2024)

Sikh:

18, Sant Nirankari Mandal, Prebend Street (25 May 2024)

Secular:

19, Leicester Secular Hall (4 June 2024)

The 18th century sundial over the porch of Saint Nicholas Church, Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Leicester Baptists and Thomas Cook’s role in the beginnings of mass tourism and travel

Central Baptist Church on Charles Street is the last surviving of several Baptist churches in Leicester city centre (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Today, Leicester is known as multifaith city, with a diverse number of religious traditions and places of worship. But, in the 19th century, Leicester was known as the ‘Metropolis of Dissent’ with a large number of non-conformist chapels and churches and a wide variety of denominations, including Congregationalists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Unitarians and Baptists.

Many ‘dissenting’ chapels were built in Leicester from the 17th century on, and many more were built in the 19th century. But the Central Baptist Church Charles Street is the last surviving of several Baptist churches in Leicester City Centre.

The Central Baptist Church, also known as the Charles Street Baptist Chapel, was designed by William Flynt, a leading local architect, and was built in 1830.

In his Guide to Leicester, Thomas Cook wrote: ‘Charles Street Chapel is a neat edifice seating about 700 people. The congregation includes several very influential families and the senior Member of Parliament of the Borough (Richard Harris) is an office-bearer in the church. The Sunday school contains about 260 scholars and 26 teachers.’

Nonconformists had considerable political and economic influence in Victorian Leicester. Baptists were one of the largest nonconformist groups in Leicester and they included influential men like Thomas Cook, the great travel pioneer and anti-alcohol campaigner, prominent manufacturers and civic dignitaries.

An image of William Carey, the pioneering Baptist missionary, at Central Baptist Church in Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Baptist ministry in Leicester produced two outstanding figures: Robert Hall, a renowned preacher and social reformer whose statue stands in De Montfort Square at New Walk, and William Carey, a shoemaker who became a pioneer Christian missionary to India, social reformer and Bible translator. Both Carey and Hall had been ministers at the Harvey Lane Chapel, near Highcross.

The Central Baptist Church houses the William Carey Museum, dedicated to William Carey, who was instrumental in the formation of the Baptist Missionary Society.

Carey left Leicester to become a missionary in India, where he translated the Bible into many Indian languages. He pioneered printing in Indian languages and was the founder of the Higher Education College in Serampore, now a major university in India.

Carey was a notable social reformer, and he contributed to framing a law prohibiting sutti, the practice of burning a widow on her husband’s funeral pyre.

Thomas Cook was a prominent Baptist in Leicester … his statue outside London Road Railway Station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Thomas Cook, a pioneering figure in the modern travel and tourism industry, was also a leading Baptist figure in Victorian Leicester.

Cook began his international travel company in 1841, with a successful one-day rail excursion from Leicester to Loughborough on 5 July. This landmark daytrip has earned Leicester the accolade of the ‘birthplace of tourism’, and it was from these humble roots that a whole new kind of travel business developed.

Thomas Cook, originally from Derbyshire, moved to Market Harborough to work as a woodturner in 1832. There, he joined the local Baptist church and became actively involved in promoting temperance.

On 9 June 1841, Cook set out to walk the 15 miles from Market Harborough to Leicester to attend a Temperance Society meeting. On the way, an idea occurred to him. He recalled: ‘A thought flashed through my brain – what a glorious thing it would be if the newly developed powers of railways and locomotion could be made subservient to the promotion of temperance.’

He suggested hiring a train and carriages from the Midland Railway Company to take members of the Leicester Temperance Society to a temperance meeting in Loughborough the following month and the idea was received with enthusiasm.

The first railway excursion left Campbell Street Station in Leicester for Loughborough on 5 July 1841 at a cost of one shilling per passenger. The 485 passengers included Thomas Cook’s seven-year-old son John Mason Cook. The party travelled in open tub-style carriages and was accompanied by a band. After a successful day of marches, speeches, games and tea in the park, the party arrived back at Leicester station at 10:30 pm.

Two months after the first excursion to Loughborough, Cook moved to Leicester where he set up a bookselling and printing business at No 1 King Street. During the next three summers, he arranged a succession of trips between Leicester, Nottingham, Derby and Birmingham on behalf of local temperance societies and Sunday schools. Although these trips helped to lay the foundations of his future business, Cook made little money from them aside from printing posters and handbills.

Cook and his family moved to 26-28 Granby Street – known as ‘Cook’s Rooms’ – in 1843. He used the building as an hotel, reading room, print works and a booking office for his excursions, and it was his home for the next 10 years.

Meanwhile, a new Baptist chapel was built in Leicester. The Belvoir Street Chapel or ‘Pork Pie Chapel’ on Belvoir Street was built in 1845 to a design by Joseph Hansom, the inventor of the horse-drawn cab.

Cook’s first commercial venture took place that summer, when he organised a trip to Liverpool. By the end of 1850, he had visited Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

In 1850, Sir Joseph Paxton, architect of the Crystal Palace, and John Ellis, chair of the Midland Railway Company, persuaded Cook to devote himself to bringing workers from Yorkshire and the Midlands to London for the Great Exhibition. By the end of the season, Cook had taken 150,000 people to London, his final trains to the Exhibition carrying 3,000 children from Leicester, Nottingham and Derby.

James Butler’s statue of Thomas Cook outside London Road Railway Station in Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Cook’s Commercial and Family Temperance Hotel and the adjoining Temperance Hall in Granby Street opened in 1853. Their neighbours on either side were pubs, the Nag’s Head on one side and the Wagon and Horses on the other, and Cook frequently clashed with their landlords.

While he continued to expand his business in Britain, Cook was determined to venture into Europe too. He managed to negotiate a route between Harwich and Antwerp, opening up the way for a grand circular tour to include Brussels, Cologne, the Rhine, Heidelberg, Baden-Baden, Strasbourg and Paris, returning to London via Le Havre or Dieppe. Cook escorted his first tourists to Europe by this route in the summer of 1855.

The success of these European tours led to the development of two important travel systems: the hotel coupon of 1868, to pay for hotel accommodation and meals abroad, and the circular note of 1874, an early form of travellers’ cheque that allowed tourists to obtain local currency in exchange for a paper note issued by Cook.

Building on his successes in Europe, Cook made an exploratory trip to North America in 1865 and set up a system of tours covering 4,000 miles of railways. Four years later, in 1869, he hired two steamers for his first tour up the Nile. The first round-the-world tour took place in 1872-1873, and conducted world tours soon became annual events.

While Thomas Cook was travelling round the world, his son, John Mason Cook, was building the company back home, moving the firm to a new head office at Ludgate Circus in London. John, the more commercially minded of the two, regularly argued with his father over the direction the company should take and by 1878 their partnership had ended.

With the ending of the business partnership with his son, Thomas had more time to devote to his life in Leicester and built his retirement home ‘Thorncroft’ at 244 London Road. In 1877, he was a founder member of the Leicester Coffee and Cocoa Company Ltd, which set up 14 coffee and cocoa houses in the town to provide alternatives to pubs. Many of these buildings still survive including the Victoria Coffee House on Granby Street, East Gates Coffee and High Cross Coffee House.

Thomas Cook died in 1892 and was buried in Welford Road Cemetery with his wife and daughter. John Mason Cook continued to take the business from strength to strength, opening new offices in Leicester in 1894. The Thomas Cook Building at 5 Gallowtree Gate was intended as a celebration of the company with tiled friezes on its exterior telling the story of the first 50 years of Thomas Cook & Son.

John Mason Cook died in 1899. Many of the objects he acquired on his travels over the years were given to the Town Museum, now Leicester Museum and Art Gallery. By the beginning of the 20th century, the firm of Thomas Cook and Son dominated the world travel scene.

The congregation of the Belvoir Street Chapel united with that of Charles Street in the 1940s and it became known as the United Baptist Church. It was designated a Grade II listed building in 1973. It was named the Central Baptist Church in 1983 and is the last surviving of several Baptist churches in Leicester City Centre.

Today, a statue of Thomas Cook stands outside London Road Railway Station in Leicester in celebration of his landmark first organised return rail journey from Leicester to Loughborough. The statue is by James Butler, who is also responsible for the Seamstress Statue, outside the City Rooms, and Richard III in Castle Gardens. The statue was unveiled in 1991, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Leicester to Loughborough excursion.

Thomas Cook’s first round-the-world tour took place in 1872-1873 … a detail from his statue at London Road Railway Station (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Bishop Street Methodist Church in Leicester is part of the heritage of Town Hall Square

Bishop Street Methodist Church in Leicester dates from 1815 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Bishop Street Methodist Church in Leicester dates from 1815 and is an important part of Leicester’s church history and architectural and religious heritage. The church has been adapted and extended over the years, with each generation that has worshipped there leaving its mark. The building and fittings have changed to meet their needs and those of the city. This is a process continues to this day.

The chapel now faces onto Town Hall Square, with its cherry trees and central fountain. Handsome buildings dating from the later 19th and early 20th century surround the square: the Reference Library (1904), the former Central Post Office, and the Town Hall (1873).

The chapel is one of the oldest surviving building in that part of Leicester. When it was built, however, it looked out onto a cattle market, the only place in Leicester where the early Methodists could afford a site.

The front of the chapel has altered little since it was built. The design is symmetrical, with ordered rows of round-arched windows and a classical style and elegant simplicity that was popular at that time in nonconformist places of worship.

Inside Bishop Street Methodist Church, Leicester, designed by the Revd William Jenkins (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The architect of the chapel, the Revd William Jenkins, was a Methodist minister. He knew what was important in a chapel building and designed many chapels. The best preserved is Walcot Chapel near Bath; the closest in appearance to Bishop Street is the chapel he designed in Carver Street, Sheffield.

Originally the chapel was entered by the large doors on the left and right, one for men and one for women. The central door is a later addition, one of many alterations in 1883. The foyer was created in the late 1960s and refurbished in 1994.

The original chapel building was practically square with a high flat ceiling. This ‘box-like’ design was designed to allow the congregation to hear the preacher clearly. and churches such as this were known as ‘auditory’ churches.

Looking out onto the world … Bishop Street Methodist Churches faces onto Town Hall Square in Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The interior has been extended and altered through the years. In 1847, the church was extended southwards, and the choir and organ area created above the vestry. The interior was remodelled in 1883. The present pulpit and communion area dates mostly from 1894, although the Communion rail may be older.

The interior was altered again after World War I, the roof was renewed, and the present arched ceiling added. The ceiling closely resembles early cinema designs and may have been intended to make the interior look more ‘up-to-date’.

The gallery tip-up seats were also a feature more at home in a cinema. Each seat has a wire hat rack, so a bowler hat or top hat could be stowed under the seat.

The pews downstairs were installed in the late 19th century, replacing the previous box pews. The new pews were numbered, so they could be rented individually. Fold-down bench seats fixed to the walls provided extra seating.

Almost all the elements in the pulpit and Communion area date from the remodelling of the chapel in 1894. The ‘rostrum’, which many consider resembles a wedding cake, is in an elaborate Italian Renaissance Style. The ornate wrought iron panels may have been made by blacksmiths in Narborough.

The arrangement of this part of the church and the emphasis given to each element are typical of Methodist Church designs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although the fittings are elaborate, there are no figurative images. The gilded cross is empty as a reminder of both the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

In central place, encircled by a wooden rail, is the Communion table. The rail allows those taking part to kneel. The small regular holes pierced in the wooden ledge behind the rail were designed to hold individual glasses typically used at Methodist celebrations of Holy Communion. By the late 19th century, most Methodist churches stopped using alcoholic wine at Communion. The individual glasses, an innovation from America, prevented the spread of disease once alcoholic wine was abandoned.

Above the table is a broad pulpit. Its elevation expresses the centrality of preaching in Methodism, and allows the preacher to be seen and heard by people in the gallery. Beyond this are the choir stalls and boards for displaying hymn numbers.

Music for worship was originally provided by a small orchestra, and it was not until the mid-19th century that an organ was acceptable. The organ installed in 1858 is the oldest object in the chapel, and may date back to the 1680s or 1690s.

The case is said to have been built by the famous organ builder Father Smith of Bremen. It has delicate carved panels, including two cherub heads. The casework was previously in Saint Margaret’s Church, Leicester. The organ was extensively remodelled in 1936 and it is likely that none of Father Smith’s original pipes remain.

Recent changes and the removal of the side pews have opened up areas under the galleries for exhibitions, stands and displays (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

On either side are World War I memorials from the chapel and from other Methodist congregations that were in other places in Leicester.

Arthur Wakerley (1862-1931), a prominent member of the congregation, was Mayor of Leicester in 1897. He was also a renowned architect in Leicester, and the buildings he designed include the former Turkey Café on Granby Street and the synagogue of the Leicester Hebrew Congregation on Highfield Street.

The chapel complex includes rooms developed for meeting, education and charitable work. In the 19th century, the Methodist minister lived in a building now occupied by the Zinthiya Trust. A large Sunday School, designed by Burton and Willoughby, was built in 1873 at the east side of the chapel. After time as a carpet warehouse and a magistrates court, it was refurbished in the 1990s and now houses the Zinthiya Trust Community Shop, Community Cycles and the Leicester Council of Faiths Office.

Within the main church building, the church rooms and lower hall provide a range of meeting and activity spaces used by community and self-help groups.

With recent changes, the removal of the side pews opened up areas under the galleries for exhibitions, stands and displays. More recent changes include a ramped entrance, a more open layout for the worship area and the Chapel Café, which is open throughout the week.

The front of Bishop Street Methodist Church in Leicester has altered little since it was built in 1815 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Three Hindu temples illustrate the religious and ethnic diversity found in Leicester

The former Midland Bank on Granby Street is now a ‘Hare Kishna’ temple … Leicester has about 20 Hindu temples (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Leicester is known as a multi-faith city with a rich ethnic, cultural and religious diversity. In recent weeks. I have written about churches, the cathedral, synagogues, meeting houses, the Jain and Sikh communities, and the Secular Hall, as examples of the variety of faith communities and belief systems found in Leicester.

About 15 per cent of Leicester’s population are Hindus. When I was in Leicester back in 2011 for a course on interfaith dialogue in Saint Philip’s Centre, our group received a warm welcome at the Shree Sanatan Mandir, a large Hindu temple in Weymouth Street. During my visits to Leicester last month, I learned that the city has about 20 Hindu temples, and I was interested to see some of them as I walked around the city.

Iskcon, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness – known to many as the Hare Krishna movement – has its temple in an elegant building on Granby Street in the centre of Leicester. The former Midland Bank is a Grade II* listed building dating from the early 1870s. The building was designed for the Leicestershire Banking Company in 1872-1873 by the Leicester architect Joseph Goddard (1840-1900).

Goddard was a member of a prominent family of architects and played a major role in introducing Victorian gothic architecture to Leicester with his clock tower. He designed the bank building in the French Gothic Revival style, in striking contrast to the Italianate design of the National Provincial Bank built nearby a few years earlier.

Notable details include the corner porch, French pavilion roofs, and a two-storey-tall stained-glass façade. The spectacular interior featured enormous hammer beams that formed a lantern roof giving the building a lofty and imposing atmosphere.

The elaborate design of the Leicestershire Bank, both inside and outside, was intended to inspire confidence among depositors, while fire-proof corridors and rooms with safes in the basement ensured the physical safety of valuables entrusted to the banks.

The hand-carved pillars incorporated friezes and coat of arms representing cities where the company did business. These carved details on the exterior are the work of the local stonemason Samuel Barfield, who was also responsible for the figures on the Clock Tower in Leicester.

The bank was completed in 1874 at the cost of £7,439. Its immediate success earned Goddard multiple commissions for new banks throughout the East Midland. Many of his buildings are still in use and listed as historic structures by English Heritage.

By the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Leicestershire Bank merged with the London City and Midland Bank, and the building later became a branch of the Midland Bank and then of HSBC.

Joseph Goddard’s details on the bank building include the corner porch and French pavilion roofs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The former bank was vacant for some years when it was bought by a local family and donated to Iskcon, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, as a temple. Six years earlier, An explosion destroyed their former temple at 21 Thoresby Street in North Evington, in Leicester, on 3 September 2010, when 30 people escaped.

The temple is one of 16 religious and cultural centres Iskcon runs in the UK, and follows the Krishna-centric practices of the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition in Hinduism. The tradition based on Sanskrit scriptures including the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavat Purana. It is a monotheistic form of Hinduism in which Krishna is worshipped as the highest form of God and the source of all the avatars of God.

The former HSBC bank on Granby Street had been on the market for five years and the bank accepted an original offer of £750,000 in May 2011. But, during the purchase process, the became clear the Grade II listed building needed major renovations to the roof, heating, and lighting systems. English Heritage added the building to a national ‘at risk’ list, saying it needed urgent repairs to save it from falling into ruin.

With an estimated renovation cost of £2 million, the community renegotiated the purchase price to £350,000 with the promise of restoring the building.

The Hare Krishna monks moved into the building in 2016, and the temple was inaugurated in August 2016. The main temple room can host up to 250 guests, and there are offices, two classrooms for the College of Vedic Studies, and a kitchen producing vegetarian food. Further renovations are planned to include a restaurant, library, and exhibition.

The Shree Geeta Bhavan Temple and Hindu Community Centre on Clarendon Park Road (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The second Hindu temple I noticed during my visits to Leicester last month is the Shree Geeta Bhavan Temple and Hindu Community Centre at 70 Clarendon Park Road, run by the Hindu Religious and Cultural Society of Leicester.

This is a more modern building than the other two temples I saw in Leicester in recent weeks. It is said locally to have been used once as part of the buildings of Saint John the Baptist school, which I visited back in 2011. It has been used as a Hindu temple and community centre since the 1980s. A £500,000 extension to the temple was officially opened in July 2010.

The temple says it seeks to meet the spiritual, ritual, ceremonial and social needs of Hindus, respecting and reflecting the diversity that is part of Hindu heritage. It tries to promote mutual respect and tolerance within the Hindu community, with its diverse beliefs and unique traditions.

The aims and objectives of Geeta Bhavan Leicester include providing an umbrella organisation for Hindu temples, faith organisations and groups across the UK, working with other faith groups for mutual appreciation through interfaith dialogue and community cohesion.

The Shirdi Sai Baba Temple Association of London had a temple in the former Guild Hall on Colton Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Until recently, the Shirdi Sai Baba Temple Association of London had its own Hindu temple in the former Guild Hall on Colton Street. The name of this building should not cause confusion with the mediaeval Guildhall near Leicester Cathedral, which was built by the Guild of Corpus Christi and later became the town hall.

The Leicester Guild of the Crippled opened the Guild Hall on Colton Street in 1909 by to provide a social centre for people with physical disabilities. As well as being ‘beautiful and commodious’, this Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau style building was very practical and was designed to be fully accessible. The architects A & TE Sawday designed it on one level, with wide exterior and interior doors for spinal carriages and wheelchairs.

The Leicester Guild of the Crippled was formed in 1898 by Arthur Isaac Groves, a hosiery manufacturer, and his business partner Thomas E Meakin, at the suggestion of Sister Carroll Hogbin. Through her work with the poor of Leicester, she realised that many disabled people were isolated and needed social contact. The Guild Hall provided a centre where the Guild of the Crippled could expand its work and provide activities such as concerts, ‘magic lantern’ evenings, craft classes, excursions and a library.

An industrial training hall was added in 1914 to address the problems disabled people faced in finding employment. Medical services were provided free of charge, including surgery, prosthetic limbs and wheelchairs.

Until recently, the former Guild Hall was used as a temple by the Shirdi Sai Baba Temple Association of London, a Hindu organisation or religious movement of the followers and devotees of the 19th and early 20th century Indian saint Sai Baba of Shirdi or Shirdi Sai Baba.

Sai Baba (1838-1918) is revered by people from a variety of religious backgrounds. He is called ‘Baba’, meaning father or grandfather, by his devotees who see him as a spiritual guru or saint with divine and miraculous powers. He was a spiritual master and fakir, considered to be a saint, and he was revered by both Hindus and Muslims.

According to the Shri Sai Satcharita, a biography written after his death, his Hindu devotees believed Sai Baba to be an incarnation of the Hindu deity Dattatreya. In his teachings, Sai Baba combined elements of Hinduism and Islam. He emphasised love, forgiveness, helping others, charity, contentment, inner peace, and devotion to God and Guru. He condemned discrimination based on religion or caste, and refused to identify himself with one religion to the exclusion of the other.

The former temple and former Guild Hall on Colton Street is in an area that has seen much regeneration in recent years, with new residential and office space bringing new life into the area. Now the sale of the former temple and former Guild Hall is being negotiated, after being on the market in recent months with an asking price of £500,000.

As for the organisation that built the Guild Hall, it moved premises but continues to support disability services. In a reflection of changing attitudes to disability, it was first renamed the Leicester Guild of the Physically Handicapped and since 2000 it has been known as ‘Mosaic 1898.’

The Shree Geeta Bhavan Temple on Clarendon Park Road is part of the religious diversity in Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Leicester Secular Hall, built in 1881, is part of the diversity of belief in a multi-faith city

Leicester Secular Hall at Leicester Secular Hall at 73-75 Humberstone Gate was designed by William Larner Sugden in 1881 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Leicester is known for its multi-faith environment and as Britain’s most ethnically diverse city. It had a rich tapestry of religious support and facilities and the city’s inclusivity is reflected in its places of worship, religious shops, community spaces, and prayer facilities.

Leicester’s diverse communities worship in the many churches, mosques, temples, mandirs, gurdwaras and synagogues throughout the city. But non-religious belief also plays a role in the life of Leicester, and the city has one of the only buildings in Britain that is dedicated to secularism.

Leicester Secular Society claims it is the world’s oldest secular society, and seeks ‘an inclusive and plural society free from religious privilege, prejudice and discrimination.’ It owes its survival to the long tradition of radical thought in Leicester and to the building of the Secular Hall in 1881.

Apart from Conway Hall in London, Leicester Secular Hall in Leicester city centre is the only building in Britain that is entirely devoted to secularism. Leicester Secular Hall at 73-75 Humberstone Gate was built in 1881 and today is a Grade II listed building.

Secularism was a very controversial idea in Victorian times, and the hall has a long tradition of hosting radical speakers from atheist, humanist and radical traditions.

Secularism in Leicester dates back to the 1780s, when artisans in the town corresponded with Thomas Paine. The first formal secular organisation was Branch 26 of Robert Owen’s Association of All Classes of All Nations. Branch 26 was founded in 1838 and meet in the Commercial Rooms near the market.

The first Leicester Secular Society was formed in 1852, and was re-established in 1867. The early Secular Society was led for many years by Josiah Gimson (1818-1883), an engineer and councillor, and William Henry Holyoak (1818-1907), a tailor.

Josiah Gimson, who was born into a Leicester Quaker family, was an active supporter of Robert Owen and was President of the local Owenite branch in Leicester. He became a secularist leader in Leicester in the 1850s, influenced by the ideas of George Jacob Holyoake, who coined the term ‘secularism’. Two of Gimson’s lectures to the society had the titles ‘Jesus Christ: a Witness for Secularism and against doctrinal Christianity’, and ‘The Ethical Teachings of Christ testify to the all-sufficiency of Secular Conduct’.

William Henry Holyoak’s family had attended the Great Meeting or Unitarian chapel in Leicester.

The terracotta busts by the sculptor Ambrose Lewis Vago represent Socrates, Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Robert Owen and Jesus (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

By the late 1860s, the activities of Leicester Secular Society mainly involved discussion classes and it met regularly when it could find venues willing to host it. Frederick James Gould (1855-1938), the society secretary, claimed Josiah Gimson proposed building the hall came after George Holyoake was prevented from using a public room for a lecture in 1873. However, other sources suggest the inspiration came from articles Holyoake published in 1871, when he proposed a series of secular halls across Britain.

The Leicester Secular Hall Co Ltd was formed to build the hall, with Josiah Gimson as the main shareholder. A site was bought and Gimson engaged William Larner Sugden (1850-1901) of Leek, Staffordshire, as the architect, engaged the sculptor Ambrose Louis Vago, and was responsible for the controversial inclusion of a bust of Jesus on the façade.

The architect William Larner Sugden was a secularist who had worked for his father, also an architect, in Leek. There he had encountered the ideas of William Morris, who was studying textile dyeing in Leek in the 1870s. Sugden’s designs are described in the Historic England listing as ‘Free Flemish Renaissance’. Non-Gothic styles were used for civic buildings in Leicester at this time to distinguish them from the buildings of the Church of England.

The five terracotta busts by the sculptor Ambrose Lewis Vago (1839-1896) on the façade represent Socrates, Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Robert Owen and Jesus. In the original plans, bronze belts round the pillars were to be inscribed with quotations from the five figures. They were chosen as ‘world-menders and social reformers’, but the choices caused uproar in 1881. Further up the façade there are representations of Libertas, Justitia, Veritas (Freedom, Truth, Justice).

Ambrose Lewis Vago was born in Holborn, London, the son of Ambrogio Vago, an Italian immigrant figure maker. He is listed in 1861 as a phrenological bust maker at 111 Gray’s Inn Lane, in 1871 as a moulder at 114 Gray’s Inn Lane, and in 1881 as a modeller and phrenological bust maker. His terracotta bust of Dr Samuel Johnson belongs to the Athenaeum Club in London.

The inclusion of Jesus among Vago’s terracotta busts caused uproar in Victorian Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The hall was opened on Sunday 6 March 1881, with speeches from Josiah Gimson, Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant.

Since then, Leicester Secular Society helped promote new ideas, inviting the advanced thinkers of the day to give lectures in the hall. William Morris gave his famous lecture, ‘Art and Socialism’, in the hall in 1884, and this speech marked the beginning of the Socialist movement in Leicester. Later visitors and speakers included George Bernard Shaw, HM Hyndman, John Burns and Prince Kropotkin.

After Gimson died in 1883, his son Sidney Gimson became the mainstay of the society until shortly before his death in 1938. He was assisted by FJ Gould as secretary from 1899 to 1908. Another son, Ernest Gimson, became a designer in the Arts and Crafts movement.

The society was once well financed, employing a full-time librarian and manager and running a swimming club, gymnasium, Sunday School, evening classes and a women’s group. To accommodate an increased working class membership, the hall opened a bar and was used by shoe workers to host their annual Saint Crispin’s Day celebrations. The membership began to actively debate socialism versus individualism.

The Leicester branch of the Socialist League held its meetings in the hall, and several founders were members of Leicester Secular Society.

The society has continued to provide a haven for the pursuit of knowledge, a shelter for free thought and radical politics, and a forum for literary, scientific and philosophical debate. Leicester Secular Hall is also home to one of the oldest libraries in Leicester, with five bookcases filled with philosophical and political books, pamphlets and journals.

The society went into a decline after World War II, and average weekly attendances dropped from a high of 50 to a low of 20. However, the recent resurgence of religion as a political issue seems to have reinvigorated the membership. The ground floor was partially refurbished and accessible toilets were installed in 2013. There are ambitious plans to fully refurbish the building to meet modern standards.

Leicester Secular Hall is one of only two buildings in Britain devoted entirely to secularism (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint George’s Church was the first parish church built in Leicester since the Reformation

Saint George’s Church is a 200-year-old church that gives its name to the Saint George’s Cultural Quarter in Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

The churchyard of Saint George’s Church is a green island in the centre of Leicester, between Colton Street and Queen Street. Saint George’s Church is a 200-year-old church that gives its name to the Saint George’s Cultural Quarter. It was built in 1823 and 1827 as a Church of England parish church, and was once one of the largest churches in Leicester. Today it is the parish church of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Leicester.

Saint George's was the first Church of England church to be built in Leicester since the Reformation. It was built under the Church Building Act of 1818, set up to mark the victory at Waterloo by providing churches in places where they were most needed.

With the Industrial Revolution and rising populations in rapidly expanding towns and cities, new parishes had to be formed. In Leicester, Saint George’s parish was formed for part of the ever-growing Saint Margaret’s parish.

Commissioners’ Churches represent the largest church building initiative in England since the Reformation, and constitute the greatest state-funded wave of church building ever seen in England. Commissioners’ Churches were built with the aid of parliamentary grants administered by the Church Building Commissioners between 1818 and 1856. The first Church Building Act passed in 1818 granted £1 million, and a second act, passed in 1824, granted a further £500,000.

The churches were built in areas with expanding populations where the largely medieval churches provided inadequately for new congregations. The new churches were intended to be spacious and economical with a substantial proportion of free seats for the poor.

Saint George’s Church was the first Church of England parish church built in Leicester since the Reformation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint George’s was the first Church of England parish church built in Leicester since the Reformation. It was built in 1823-1827 with a grant of £16,600 from the Church Building Commissioners. This was a substantial amount, given that nationally the average cost of a new church between 1800 and 1830 was £6,000, and it was the largest sum spent on any church in Leicestershire and Rutland in the 19th century.

Saint George’s is predominantly in the Decorated style and was built in 1823-1827 to designs by the County Surveyor, William Parsons (1796-1857), a leading local architect with eight listed buildings to his name. Parsons was also responsible for Leicester Gaol, Leicestershire Lunatic Asylum, now the Fielding Johnson Building at Leicester University, and six Midland Railway stations in Leicestershire, including Brooksby Station.

Saint George’s originally accommodated 801 people in pews and 999 in free seats. A drawing of the church interior ca 1827 shows two raised pulpits at the east end of the nave, box pews, and galleries in the aisles that had plastered ceilings. A contemporary account suggests that the nave may have been vaulted.

Saint George’s was rebuilt and restored in 1912-1914 by William Douglas Caröe, a major figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint George’s is an especially elaborate example of a Commissioners’ Church in the Gothic style which has impressively proportioned elevations enriched with a multitude of stone-carved embellishments. One of the most notable features of the church is the use of cast iron for the window tracery, an important surviving feature of a rare architectural detail.

After a severe lightning strike, Parsons rebuilt the tower to a slightly higher design in 1846.

The pulpit, tower screen and font are finely carved, highly decorated examples of fittings of their kind. The font and cover by H Goddard & Son, an important Leicester-based architectural practice was installed in 1865. The west gallery was removed in 1879, and the small sanctuary was replaced by a large chancel with a side chapel and vestry to the designs of Sir Arthur Blomfield (1829-1899). He was a prominent Gothic revival architect whose works include the Royal College of Music, London, Selwyn College, Cambridge, Saint Barnabas Church, Jericho, Oxford, and Saint Luke’s Chapel, Oxford, and he rebuilt the nave of Southwark Cathedral.

A fire broke out at the neighbouring spinning factory of R Rowley & Co in 1911 and burning material landed on the roof of Saint George’s, destroying much of the nave and damaging the chancel and tower.

Saint George’s was rebuilt and restored in 1912-1914 by William Douglas Caröe (1857-1938), who had been appointed Senior Architect to the Church Commissioners in 1895. He was a major figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement and a pioneer of building conservation, restoring many churches as well as designing domestic and commercial buildings.

Caröe’s finely detailed design for the nave ceiling and the lofty piers, unusually embellished with sculpted figures in niches, contributes significantly to the architectural distinction of the church. His drawings show that only the external walls and windows of the nave survived the fire. He rebuilt the arcade and the roof to a different design, and removed the damaged galleries. The tower was restored and a timber screen costing £400 was inserted but the spire was removed. The seating was replaced and a memorial pulpit costing £110 was installed.

Caröe also designed the war memorial in the churchyard, commemorating the dead of World War I.

William Douglas Caröe designed the war memorial in the churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

After slum clearance in the surrounding area in the mid-20th century, the congregation dwindled and Saint George’s was closed for Anglican worship in the early 1970s. The Serbian Orthodox Church began holding services in the church in 1973 and it was formally transferred to the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1983.

However, the building suffered from dry rot and water ingress throughout the second half of the 20th century, leading to much of the chancel roof and ceiling being replaced in the 1960s. The south slope of the nave roof was re-covered in Welsh slate in 1987. Further roof repairs are being carried out to the nave.

The church gives its name to Saint George’s Cultural Quarter, a 26-acre area on the east side of Leicester City Centre. It was established in 1989, and transformed the former textile and shoe manufacturing hub into a thriving area for artists, designers and craftspeople.

Once the industrial hub of the city, the area fuses together elements of the city’s more historic architecture with sensitive and award winning regeneration projects, creating an exciting, cosmopolitan and creative place.

Saint George’s has been the Serbian Orthodox parish church in Leicester since 1973 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Saint George’s is a solid building and some people say it looks like a mediaeval castle with its elegant, tall towers. Its green yard is an oasis of tranquillity in the busy heart of Leicester.

Thousands of people pass by the church every day but few ever get to see inside it. It is largely closed because of the constant struggle to find the money needed for repairs and the threat of anti-social behaviour in the surrounding area. Many people say the immediate area is gloomy, unsafe and used by drug addicts.

Leicester City Council wants to revamp the area around the church with a £900,000 scheme for the churchyard, which it says will prevent water run-off from leaves and branches damaging the Grade II* listed church and open out the area.

The plans also included remodelling Saint George’s churchyard to create a ‘garden gateway’ connecting the rail station to the area around Curve. However, a proposal to fell 21 mature lime trees was opposed by environmental campaigners and by the Serbian Orthodox church which owns the land.

Leicester City Council wants to revamp the area around Saint George’s Church with a £900,000 scheme for the churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Unitarians have been at the Great Meeting chapel in Leicester for more than 300 years

The Unitarian Chapel in Leicester, known as the Great Meeting … built in 1708 and the oldest complete brick building in Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Throughout this week, in the six days following Trinity Sunday, I have been illustrating my prayer diary each morning with photographs and memories of churches in Greece that are dedicated to the Holy Trinity.

By way of contrast this evening, I am looking back on my visit last week to the Unitarian Chapel in Leicester, known historically as the Great Meeting. It was built in 1708, and it is the oldest complete brick building in Leicester, making it an important historic building in the city.

The chapel or Great Meeting is in a city centre location, close to the main shopping and recreational facilities in Leicester, and is included in a conservation area. It is engaged in a £250,000 restoration programme.

The chapel or Great Meeting In Leicester … built in 1708 to meet the needs of Congregationalists and Presbyterians (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Unitarian origins go back to the Presbyterian presence in Leicester after the English civil war in the mid-17th century. The congregation in Leicester was founded around 1672, after King Charles II’s Declaration of Indulgence allowed nonconformist ministers the freedom to preach under license. For the next 36 years, the dissenters or nonconformists in Leicester met in cramped and unsuitable buildings, including one in what is now called Infirmary Square.

There was a close connexion between the Congregationalists and Presbyterians in Leicester by 1692, and in that year Edmund Spencer was the preacher to both congregations. Meanwhile, the Toleration Act (1689) allowed dissenters to build their own places of worship, and the chapel or Great Meeting was built in 1708 as a ‘Meeting House of Protestant Dissenters’, to meet the needs of Congregationalists and Presbyterians.

Together they bought the site, originally an orchard beside the Butt Close. The Cherry Tree pub, to this day next door to the chapel, is named because the orchard had cherry trees.

The two-storey red brick and stucco chapel and the central porch has Tuscan columns. The roof is a fine and intact example of early 18th century oak vernacular carpentry and has a unique and ingenious structure that suspends an octagonal plaster ceiling that dates from 1786.

The graveyard was converted into a garden in 1945 and is one of the few green spaces in that part of Leicester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Although the Great Meeting is now Unitarian, it only became so at the beginning of the 19th century. The trust deeds of the chapel do not place any condition on the religious views of the congregation, but a members of the Great Meeting who did not welcome the move towards Unitarianism seceded and set up another Congregational chapel in 1800.

A tablet on one wall in the chapel records the marriage in 1837 of William Rowlett, reputedly the first marriage in a non-conformist chapel in England.

The chapel was extensively modified in 1866, when the seating capacity was expanded to 1,160, the chancel was added and an early 19th century gallery on three sides was replaced by the present gallery. The concert organ dates from 1882 and is in working order. Another Unitarian chapel was built in Wellington Street about 1876, but it was closed in 1901, when a chapel in Narborough Road was opened.

A garden room with kitchen and basement meeting room were added in 1995, allowing lettings for a variety of educational uses and to groups such as those providing refugee support.

The graveyard was converted into a garden in 1945. It is one of the few green spaces in that part of the city. It is an attractive resource and is open to the public several times a year.

The restored old school rooms accommodate a health centre for homeless people and asylum seekers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The old school rooms have been restored and modified and are rented out by the chapel to a NHS funded Health Centre for the homeless and asylum seekers.

The congregation supported a charity school from the early 18th century, clothing 20 boys and 20 girls, and teaching them to read and write. Children were vaccinated against smallpox and an invoice was submitted in 1750 for ‘washing the children’.

The congregation built a new school-building beside the Cherry Tree pub in 1813, and it was enlarged in 1848. Threatened with the loss of the government grants unless they reduced overcrowding, the congregation built a new range of schoolrooms to accommodate 1,000 children at a cost of £1,800, raised entirely from the members.

At first, only reading and writing were taught but by 1860 the curriculum included reading, writing, grammar, geography, scripture, history, arithmetic, vocal music and drawing. In addition, the boys were taught algebra, geometry, French and drill, and the girls were taught needlework.

The Great Meeting Day School closed in 1872 after the Education Act was passed, but the rooms continued to be used for the Sunday School and adult schools, and were rented out to the ‘Board School’.

Inside the Great Meeting … the chancel and galleries were added in 1866 (Photograph: Leicester Great Meeting)

Joseph Dare (1800-1883) ran the Leicester Domestic Mission for the Great Meeting Chapel from 1847 until he retired in 1876. He was a Unitarian, a teacher, accountant and enthusiastic voluntary worker.

The Domestic Mission aimed to provide social and practical help to the poor, coupled with encouragement to lead a more religiously observant life, leading to self-reliance and moral rectitude. Dare wrote a comprehensive report every year describing both living conditions in Victorian Leicester and his work. It is a unique and record of working class life and of his vocation as an early prototype social worker.

He visited thousands of homes each year to assess need, provide moral support and to comfort the dying. He was concerned at the lack of educational opportunity and set up an additional Sunday School, a library and adult evening classes supported by chapel volunteers.

Inside the Great Meeting … generations of members were active in many progressive causes (Photograph: Leicester Great Meeting)

The congregation was influential in Leicester in the 18th and 19th centuries, with the Unitarians in the Great Meeting providing many of the leading thinkers in Leicester. The contribution of members to the political, economic and cultural life of the town was out of proportion to their size or numbers.

They were active in many progressive causes including opposing slavery and demanding municipal reform, votes for women and universal education. Many members were also involved developing the hosiery trade in Leicester and in establishing banking and mechanised worsted spinning.

William Gardiner (1770-1853), a renowned composer and choirmaster, is credited with introducing Beethoven to England, with his first performance in 1794.

In the 19th century, chapel members helped found the Mechanics Institute, the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society and the Leicestershire Archaeological Society, which laid the foundations of the city’s modern museums.

The first seven mayors of Leicester following municipal reform in 1835 were all Unitarians, and the chapel became known locally as ‘The Mayor’s Nest’. The first of these seven mayors, Thomas Paget (1778-1862), was mayor in 1836-1837.

Other Unitarians who made great contributions to the political, economic and cultural life of Leicester included John Biggs (1801-1871), a hosiery merchant, political reformer, MP and three times Mayor of Leicester. The business leader John Mason Cook was a son of Thomas Cook, the pioneering travel agent.

In the 20th century, Joseph Fielding Johnson, a member of the congregation, was a major benefactor of University College, now the University of Leicester. The main administrative block, once the old ‘County Lunatic Asylum’, is now named after him.

Today a number of members of the congregation are active in public and political life, including Leicester’s first elected Mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby.

The World War I war memorial in the porch of the Great Meeting (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The congregation has had many distinguished ministers. Early ministers included the Revd James Watson, who died in 1741, and the Revd Hugh Worthington, who died in 1797. The Revd Charles Berry (1783-1877) became the minister of the Great Meeting in 1803 at the age of 20, in succession to the Revd Robert Jacomb, and remained until 1859. During his time, the building was substantially re-modelled.

Berry was descended from a long line of Independent or Congregational ministers and was also descended from Sir Charles Wolseley. With leading members of his congregation, Berry played a major part in the movement for political reform in the town, and he was one of the founders of the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society, and of the Leicester Town Museum.

The Revd Thomas William Johnson Barker (1831-1895), who was ordained a Congregationalist minister, was the minister of the Bond Street Chapel from 1858 to 1867, and he wrote a history of the chapel in 1866. He returned to London as the minister of New College Chapel (1868-1889).

Barker rejoined the Church of England int 1890, was ordained that same year, and was a priest in Devonport, Plymouth, and Cullompton in Devon. He was succeeded at the Bond Street Chapel by the Revd Robert Harley (1828-1910), who later served as a Congregationalist minister in Huddersfield, Oxford, Sydney and London.

The Revd Gertrude von Petzold (1876-1952) was chosen as the minister of the Narborough Road chapel in 1904 and was the first female minister in any denomination in England. A German Unitarian, she trained at Manchester College (now Harris Manchester College), Oxford, and also served in Birmingham. The 1905 communion set given to her as a gift was used at the Whitsun Communion on Sunday 19 May 2024.

The Revd Dr Arthur Stewart recently retired after 33 years of ministry. The Revd Arek Malecki was appointed last summer, with an induction service on 18 November 2023.

Great Meeting Chapel was the first religious establishment in Leicester to offer same-sex marriages.

Sunday services at 11 am usually follow the pattern of prayers, hymns, readings and an address, with coffee afterwards. There is a mid-week ‘Soul Haven’ meeting with short prayers and meditation on Thursdays. The chapel offers marriages, including same sex unions, naming ceremonies and funerals, which are also available on a humanist, non-theistic basis.

The Great Meeting Chapel and school … an artist's impression