Brook Street Chapel

My last podiatry appointment in Knutsford this morning.

I was meeting a friend later, but had time before then to visit the Unitarian Chapel on Brook Street. I had never been before, so was rather surprised to find it a real gem. Grade 1 listed (the only one in Knutsford), the oldest place of worship in the town, one of the oldest dissenting chapels in the country, and I think probably the town’s most interesting building.

It was built by Presbyterian dissenters in 1689 following the Act of Toleration of 1688, and was built to look like a farmhouse and not a church so as to minimise hostility (see extra). The top of the stairways provided look out points, a couple of people being stationed outside during services to warn of trouble. Trees shield it from public view. The glass in the windows is all original, as is much of the interior. The guttering and downpipes are all wooden, it has a stone flagged roof. Simple beauty.

The garden is also a graveyard, and here lies buried the great 19th century author Elizabeth Gaskell and her family. Born in London, her mother died when she was one year old and she moved to Knutsford to live with her Aunt, Hannah Lumb. It seems to have been a happy arrangement.

I was going to skip the tiny Tuesday challenge, but in the Elizabeth Gaskell room in the adjacent Chapel Hall is a rather wonderful dolls house. The interior represents the house where Elizabeth grew up. Her room is top right. Her Aunt Lumb sits in the sitting room, bottom left. The gentleman in the centre is her Uncle Peter, Doctor Peter Holland. He was the world’s first occupational physician, employed by Unitarian industrialist Samuel Gregg to undertake regular checks on the physical health of the children employed at his mill at Styal.