A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



down Road chapel dates from 1 897. There is another 

 in Lark Lane. Mission halls are Templar Hall and 

 Hutchinson Hall. Mount Zion in Prince's Avenue 

 is for Welsh-speaking Methodists ; a previous chapel 

 was in Chester Street. The New Connexion have a 

 church in Park Place. The United Free Methodists 

 have two places of worship. 



The Baptists have three churches : the Tabernacle 

 in Park Road, built in 1871; Prince's Gate chapel, 

 1 88 1 ; and Windsor Street Welsh chapel. This last, 

 built in 1872, represents a congregation formed in 

 Gore Street in 1827. 



The Welsh Calvinistic Methodists have churches in 

 Prince's Road and David Street. They had a 

 chapel called Ebenezer in Bedford or Beaufort Street, 

 Toxteth, as early as 1805.' 



As a result of a ' tent mission ' begun in the year 

 1823, a Congregational church was formed in 1827. 

 now represented by the Berkley Street church. 8 The 

 same body opened Toxteth chapel in 1831; this 

 building was replaced in 1872 by that at the corner 

 of Aigburth Road. In 1881-5 a school chapel was 

 built in Hartington Road. 3 In Park Road is a chapel 

 for Welsh-speaking Congregationalists.* 



There is a Church of Christ in Windsor Street. 



The Presbyterians have four churches. The senior 

 is that in Belvedere Road, known as Trinity, erected 

 in 1857. The important church by the Sefton Park 

 gates, where Dr. John Watson (Ian Maclaren) was 

 minister, was built in 1879. In the same year a 

 church was built in Prince's Road, replacing a tem- 

 porary one founded by the United Presbyterians in 

 1864. St. Columba's, Smithdown Road, was opened 

 in 1897. 



The ' ancient chapel ' of Toxteth Park is supposed 

 to have been built about the commencement of the 

 seventeenth century by the tenants and farmers of the 

 park. 5 It was probably never consecrated, and it is 

 not known whether the Anglican services were ever 

 used in it. The commissioners of 1650 noticed it, 

 and recommended that it should have a parish assigned 



to it. 6 In 1718 Bishop Gastrell recorded that it was 

 uncertain whether the Park was extra-parochial or in 

 the parish of Lancaster ; that the chapel was held by 

 the Dissenters under a lease from Lord Molyneux, 

 whose agents returned it as a house belonging to his 

 lordship when as a 'papist' his estates were regis- 

 tered. 7 A similar statement had been made in 

 1671-2, on the Declaration of Indulgence, the chapel 

 being then licensed for worship. 8 At that time it was 

 said that ' there was neither a Churchman nor a 

 Catholic' here. 9 About 1716 a sum of .300 was 

 bequeathed to the township by John Burgess and others, 

 of which the interest on .260 was considered to 

 belong to the 'orthodox minister' and the rest to the 

 poor. 10 



Richard Mather, the first minister, is said to have 

 settled in Toxteth as a schoolmaster about 1612; 

 showing aptitude he was sent up to Brasenose College, 

 Oxford ; afterwards he was minister at Toxteth and 

 Prescot, until silenced in 1633 by the archbishop of 

 York for his nonconformity. In 1635 he emigrated 

 to New England. 11 From his departure until 1646 

 nothing is known of the chapel's history ; in the 

 latter year Robert Port was minister ; ls Thomas Hig- 

 gins in 1650;" and Thomas Crompton in 1657." 

 No doubt regular public services had to be discon- 

 tinued for a time after 1662. Michael Briscoe, 

 ejected from Walmsley, was minister at Toxteth at 

 his death in 1685," and was followed by Christopher 

 Richardson, ejected at Kirkheaton. 16 About a hundred 

 years afterwards the minister and most of the congre- 

 gation, like the English Presbyterians in general, had 

 adopted Unitarian tenets, 17 and the building continues 

 to be used as a Unitarian place of worship. Another 

 Unitarian church has been built in Ullet Road ; 18 and 

 there is a mission in Mill Street. 



The Society of Friends have a burial-ground in 

 Smithdown Road. 



The first Roman Catholic church erected in Tox- 

 teth was St. Patrick's, Park Place, begun in 1821 and 

 opened in l827. 19 Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 



