Congregational Church, Warminster

Reverend Geoffrey Nuttall

Wednesday 29th August 2007

The Times newspaper, today, features an obituary for the Reverend Geoffrey Nuttall, who died on 24th July 2007.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article2343566.ece –

Geoffrey Nuttall was the Minister at the Common Close Congregational Church, Warminster, from 1938 to 1943.

Other obituaries were published in The Independent and The Daily Telegraph on 14 August 2007.

Rev. Geoffrey Nuttall also has his own entry in Wikipedia
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Nuttall

The Baptist Church And John Halliday

Extract from The Changing Face Of Warminster by Wilfred Middlebrook, published in 1971:

Further along North Row, at the opposite side, is the Ebenezer Baptist Chapel, built in 1810, with schools and classrooms added later. Before its erection, Baptist worshippers went to Common Close or walked out to Crockerton, where a small chapel had been built before the 1719 chapel of Common Close. The Crockerton Chapel was built on a piece of land called “The Waste’ to “accommodate worshippers who had been walking from Crockerton and the Deverills to the Old Meeting House in Warminster.” It was a kind of half-way house, still existing as a chapel forty years ago.

Mention has been made of the Halliday Pew being ejected from the Minster. A curious sequel to this was that John Edmund Halliday, by his will of June 1905, left the whole of his £20,000 estate “to his wife Kate for life, after which it goes to Warminster Baptist Church.” The Halliday family, this branch of it at any rate, were supporters of the Old Meeting. John Halliday, born 1671, was connected with the Presbyterians in 1691. John Edmund Halliday, of Yard House, East Street, was his great-grandson.

John Halliday purchased his own pew when the Old Meeting House was built but this was not the one that caused such a commotion in later years, the one ejected from the Minster Church. Edward Halliday purchased the freehold of a pew site in the Minster Church in 1680, and installed a pew five feet high, “in shape resembling a cattle truck.” Apparently, the Trustees of the Baptist Church had a reversionary interest in this pew, which they surrendered in 1914 when the widow of John Edmund Halliday expressed a desire to see the pew, with all rights pertaining to it, restored to the Minster Church.

Common Close Congregational Church, Warminster, 200th Anniversary

Common Close Congregational Church, Warminster, 200th Anniversary

From Common Close Congregational Church 200th Anniversary Programme 1919:

Special Services and Meetings in celebration of the above will be held as follows:

On SUNDAY, JUNE 22nd, 1919, Services will be conducted by the REV. E. ANTHONY, M.A. (Of Trowbridge).

On WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25th, at 4 p.m., a Sermon will be preached by REV. J.D. JONES, D.D., (Of Bournemouth).

There will be Tea in the Schoolroom at 5.30 (Tickets 9d.), and a Public Meeting in the Church at 6.45.

W.J. MANN, ESQ., Of Trowbridge, will preside, and DR. J.D. JONES will give an Address.

Collections for Bicentenary Thankoffering Fund.

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1719 – 1919
The exact date of the formation of the Independent (or Congregational) Church at Common Close is uncertain, but as near as can be ascertained services were commenced on June 26th, 1719. A Presbyterian Church had existed in Warminster for many years previous to this, services being first held in a barn in Beastleaze Meadow. The congregation subsequently removed, in 1691, to a larger building in Meeting House Lane (now North Row), this being superseded in 1704 by the erection of the building now used as the Girls’ Council School, and long known by the name of the “Old Meeting.” Here, a large and influential congregation worshipped for many years, but in 1719 the then minister, the Rev. Samuel Bates, was suspected of a tendency to Unitarian doctrines, and there was a considerable secession from the Church; and it was these seceders who established the Independent Church, or, as it was first called, the “New Meeting.” It may be noted, by the way, that the later ministers of the “Old Meeting” preached distinctly Unitarian doctrines, and the congregation gradually dwindled away and eventually died out in 1860.

BI-CENTENARY THANKOFFERING

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As a Thankoffering to Almighty God for the blessings vouchsafed to the Church during the 200 years of its existence, it is hoped to raise the sum of £200 for carrying out much-needed repairs and alterations to the Church, and the help of past and present members of the congregation is solicited for this object. Contributions to the amount of £75 have already been promised, and any further donations will be gladly acknowledged by the Treasurer, Mr. S. Webb, High-street, Warminster; or the Secretary, Mr. E.S. Foreman, Portway, Warminster.

Opening Of Lecture And Class Rooms At Common Close Chapel, Warminster

Advertisement in The Warminster Miscellany And Local Advertiser, issue dated 1st June 1863:

Common-Close, Warminster.

On Wednesday, the 10th June 1863, the new Lecture And Class Rooms will be opened for Infant and Bible Classes and Devotional Meetings.

The Dedication Services will be held in Common-Close Chapel, at three o’clock in the afternoon and at seven o’clock in the evening; when Prayers will be offered by neighbouring Ministers, and Discourses will be delivered by the Rev. Samuel Martin, of Westminster Chapel, London.

Tea will be provided in the large School-room at 5 p.m.

Tickets, One Shilling each, and half-price to Children in the Sunday-School.

On the following Lord’s Day, June the 14th, Sermons will be presented in the same Chapel by the Rev. W.H. Dyer, of Argyle Chapel, Bath.

Collections will be made on both days in aid of the cost incurred in the erection of these Buildings.

Warminster Common Close Chapel To Be Renovated

The Warminster Miscellany, 1 October 1862, reported:

Common-Close Chapel. – We learn from The Somerset And Wilts Journal that at a meeting of the subscribers to this chapel, it was decided to re-pew, paint, and otherwise renovate this place of worship. The repairs are contracted for at the amount of £155.