Building record 7203/90/1 - Particular Baptist Chapel, Little Street

Former Baptist chapel in Little Street. It originated as a mall tenement converted to a chapel in 1768. The existing building replaced it in 1796, has rubble walls and a steeply pitched hipped and tiled roof. A schoolroom and vestries were added at the back in 1860, and in 1873-4 the chapel was enlarged. It was converted to a Sunday school in 1901 when a new chapel was opened in Park Road. Adjacent burial ground.

{1} Baptist Chapel, Little Street. Erected in 1797 and enlarged in 1893. It was subsequently used as a Sunday School. Sometimes called 'Top Meeting'. Exterior is of white brick with 'Enlarged 1878' on the front. The building now appears to be largely out of use. Film 5, photo 16,17.

2} The Baptist congregation in Rushden became autonomous by 1723. The meeting house was described in 1768 as a converted tenement and seems to have stood on the present site behind other buildings. The existing structure is a rebuilding of 1796 with rubble walls and a steeply pitched hipped and tiled roof; a schoolroom and vestries were added at the back in 1860 and in 1873-4 the chapel was enlarged to the south in yellow brick with a slate roof gabled to the front. In 1901 a new chapel was opened in Park Road and the Little Street building converted for use by the Sunday-school.
The side walls have two tiers of irregularly spaced windows. The south front before enlargement had two tall doorways incorporating windows, with a window between and one above, all with flat-arched heads with keystones; between the two windows was a tablet dated 1796 now reset in the east wall. The interior (about 42ft by 32ft) had galleries around three sides and round-arched windows each side of the pulpit.

<1> Ballinger J., 1999, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Industrial Period, (unchecked) (Digital archive). SNN4.

<2> The Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, 1986, Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting-Houses: Northamptonshire & Oxfordshire, p. 147 (Report). SNN2902.

Record last edited

Sep 6 2023 11:58AM