Castle Gate Congregational Centre is in
Nottingham. It is a Grade II listed building.[1]
History
The congregation formed in the 1650s. The first meeting house on
Castle Gate was established in 1689 under the
Act of Toleration.[2]
The present building was erected in 1863 to designs by the architect
Richard Charles Sutton,[3] and opened for worship in 1864. The congregation suffered from some embarrassment in 1866 when
Henry Walter Wood, local architect and surveyor petitioned for divorce from his wife on the grounds of her adultery with
George Eaton Stanger, surgeon and a deacon of the Chapel. The trial in 1867 lasted three days and was widely reported in the National press. Wood was awarded £3,000 from Stanger in damages.[4]
The church was successful and spawned other churches, including:[6]
Park Hill Congregational Church. Initially on St. James Street. Congregation founded 12 January 1823, Church constructed 15 May 1823 to 23 September 1823. Church closed 11 July 1880 when the congregation moved to a new building on Derby Road.
Lenton Abbey Congregational Church. Congregation formed in 1929. Church opened in 1933. Later renamed Boundary Road United Reformed Church. Closed 2010.
Clifton Congregational Church. Founded in 1956. Now United Reformed.
Ministers
John Ryther 1686 - 1704
Richard Bateson 1704 - 1739
James Sloss 1739 - 1772
Richard Plumbe 1773 - 1791
Richard Alliott 1795 - 1843 (afterwards minister at York Road Congregational Church, London)
Samuel McAll 1843 - 1860 (afterwards Theological Tutor at Hackney College)
Clement Clemence 1860 - 1875[7] (afterwards minister at Camberwell Congregational Church, London)
John Bartlett 1875 - 1883
R. Baldwin Brindley 1883 - 1901 (afterwards minister at George Street Congregational Church, Croydon)
The church obtained the current organ in 1909. It had been constructed for Councillor George E. Franklin at his house, The Field, in Derby in 1903. It was by
James Jepson Binns and cost about £3,500 (equivalent to £399,844 in 2021).[8]
^History of Castle Gate Congregational Church, Nottingham, 1655-1905. James Clarke, London. 1905.
^Pevsner Architectural Guides, Nottingham. Elain Harwood. Yale University Press.
ISBN978-0-300-12666-2
^"A Divorce Case. £3000 damages". Louth and North Lincolnshire Advertiser. England. 16 March 1867. Retrieved 16 February 2019 – via British Newspaper Archive.