Image ID: 21183

Old Meeting House Parsonage, Mansfield

Courtesy of North Notts Newspapers Ltd

Stockwell Gate
Mansfield
England

The church was founded in 1662 by a group of Anglican clergy following 'The Great Ejection' on August 24th 1661(St Bartholomew's Day). The group included the Rev Robert Porter from Pentrich in Derbyshire. The chapel itself was built in 1702 (after the Act of Toleration permitting freedom of worship) and enlarged in 1870 financed by local mill owner, William Hollins, former owner of Pleasley Vale Mills. The Old Meeting House is the oldest non-conformist place of worship in Nottinghamshire. Mansfield has a long tradition of non-conformism, due in no small part to the toleration shown by the 17th Century Vicar of Mansfield, John Firth, to those dissenting ministers seeking refuge in the town after having been ejected from their livings (for failing to reconcile their own beliefs with the established rites of the Church of England as laid down in the 1662 Act of Uniformity). In the 17th Century the town's main non-conformist religions were the Unitarians and the Society of Friends and both groups, though persecuted, prospered.

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Mansfield Library