High Pavement Chapel

High Pavement Unitarian Chapel
Unitarian Chapel on High Pavement, now the Pitcher and Piano public house
High Pavement Unitarian Chapel
OS grid reference	SK 57521 39618
Country	England
Previous denomination	Unitarian
Architecture
Heritage designation	Grade II listed[1]
Architect	Stuart Colman
Completed	1876
Closed	1982

High Pavement Chapel is a redundant church building in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England. It is now the Pitcher and Piano public house and is Grade II listed. It was built as, and for most of its existence operated as, a Unitarian place of worship.

The building seen from the south, with a Nottingham Express Transit tram in the foreground

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. A third minister, John Barret, similarly lost his living at St Peter's. All three men left town to comply with the Five Mile Act 1665. 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.^[2]

By 1735 the congregation had established itself as liberal (in the tradition of English Presbyterianism) 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^{[citation needed]}. The building was then converted to its current use, as a Pitcher and Piano public house.^[3] The current congregation, Nottingham Unitarians, affiliated with the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, are now based nearby at 3 Plumptre Street, Nottingham NG1 1JL, a former lace factory where items of lace were finished.^[4]

Sunday School

There appears to be some discrepancy about the beginning of the Sunday School. It celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 1854, suggesting a start date of 1804 but celebrated its centenary in 1905, giving a start date of 1805.^[5] New school rooms were provided in 1805, so this may the cause of the discrepancy. The School was founded by the Rev James Taylor.

The Sunday School Window was unveiled by Miss Hannah Guilford,(1839-1936) the President of the Sunday School in October 1906 during an anniversary service conducted by Rev Gertrud von Petzold M.A. of Leicester.^[6] Petzold (1876-1952), a German Lutheran, was the first woman to preach at the High Pavement Chapel in October 1904. She was repatriated to Germany in July 1915.

Stained glass

• East window 1904, by Morris & Co., to design by Philip Burne-Jones
• North aisle war memorial window, 1925, by Kempe & Co^[7]
• Sunday School memorial window, 1906, by Henry Holiday
• North transept north window 1890, by Henry Enfield (1849-1923) Enfield designed the window and it was created in his glassworks in Dusseldorf. It was to commemorate the work of friends and co-workers in the Chapel, namely, William Enfield, former Town Clerk of Nottingham, Mrs Anne Enfield, Superintendent of the Girls Sunday School, Charles Paget, former MP of Nottingham and Lewis Heymann, a former Mayor of Nottingham. The picture of David singing and playing his harp is said to represent Anne Enfield's artistic and musical skills. .Henry Enfield was the nephew of William Enfield, the Town Clerk and great grandson of the Unitarian minister, William Enfield.^[8]

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^[9] 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^[10] 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)^[11]
• 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.^[12]

Archives

The diaries of Samuel Collinson, a local stockbroker and amateur artist, contain a significant number of entries describing the life of the church in the 1850s and 1860s. The diaries are held at Inspire Nottinghamshire Archives.^[13]

The archives for the High Pavement Chapel are held at Manuscripts and Special Collections at University of Nottingham.^[14]

See also

• Listed buildings in Nottingham (Bridge ward)

References

1. Historic England. "Lace Hall (Grade II) (1247635)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 11 May 2015.
2. Hoare, Peter (1992). The Rectors of St Peter's Church, Nottingham, 1241–1991. Nottingham: St Peter's Parochial Church Council. pp. 22–24.
3. "Nottingham". Pitcher and Piano.
4. "Nottingham Unitarians".
5. ^{Sunday School Jubilee, Nottingham Journal, June 16, 1854, 1; Centenary of High Pavement Sunday School, Nottingham Guardian October 21, 1905, 9.}
6. Items of Local Interest, The Nottingham Evening Post October 29, 1906, 7
7. "Nottingham - High Pavement Unitarian Chapel". Nottinghamshire WW1 & WW2 Roll of Honour. 2023. Retrieved 17 November 2025.
8. Alice Weeks Some Notes on the Memorials and Other Objects of Interest and Beauty in the High Pavement Chapel, Nottingham 1937
9. "Hughes, Obadiah" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
10. "Scargill, William Pitt" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
11. "Obituary". Nottingham Guardian. England. 12 December 1905. Retrieved 5 March 2023 – via British Newspaper Archive.
12. Lawrence, David Herbert (1913). Sons and Lovers  – via Wikisource.
13. Reference M382/1 & 2, The Diaries of Samuel Collinson, (Inspire Nottinghamshire Archives)
14. "High Pavement Chapel, Nottingham". mss-cat.nottingham.ac.uk. Retrieved 18 October 2025.

• An Itinerary of Nottingham, J. Holland Walker, 1927.
• Allens Illustrated Guide to Nottingham, J. Potter Briscoe, 1888.

52°57′04″N 1°8′45″W / 52.95111°N 1.14583°W / 52.95111; -1.14583