Default Image Place of Worship has been
Demolished.
Image by courtesy of
openclipart.org

Kingdom Hall (1950s) (Demolished),
Horeshoe Yard, Matlock Green,
Matlock, Derbyshire.

Cemeteries

We believe the Church did NOT have a graveyard.

Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

This Place of Worship was founded in 1957, but we understand it was closed in 1975.

On 16th February 1957, a congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses registered a building named "Kingdom Hall" on the "first floor of a building, Horseshoe Yard, Matlock Green" - this, according to a notice published in The London Gazette of 22nd April 1975 (p.5188), announcing that it had "wholly ceased to be used as [a] place of worship".

Two months earlier, on 12th February 1975, the congregation had registered a "new" Kingdom Hall at 31 Snitterton Road, a conversion of two buildings - a 19th century Wesleyan Chapel, and its adjacent property. This was, in turn, vacated in 2007-2008, when the present Kingdom Hall in Bank Road was opened.

Horseshoe Yard was, I assume, the yard belonging to the Horseshoe Hotel, shown on Old Maps of 1880 and 1899 on the north-east corner of the junction of Matlock Green with Limetree Lane (today's Lime Tree Road). The Maps also show a Smithy. A Public House was still shown in 1967, and around this time (so Peter Kirk informs me) it had a function room at the rear; but by then, the area where the Smithy stood is labelled as a "Builders' Yard". The obvious use for this in more recent years would have been as a car park for the pub, which remained open until a few years ago (2011), but has since become a private house.

For further information of the Jehovah's Witness presence in Matlock, see Ann Andrews' excellent webpage of Matlock Churches and Chapels.

Denomination

Now or formerly Jehovah's Witness.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here, or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Church was located at OS grid reference SK3033459842. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Kingdom Hall (1950s) (Demolished), Matlock shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Matlock shown on a Google Map.
• Streetmap.co.uk (arrow on map shows the Place of Worship's location) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Bing (Ordnance Survey option) (verified 2018-10-13)
• Bing Maps ('Bird's Eye' View) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Ordnance Survey "getamap" (NB some of the 'Change Map' options may require a subscription) (verified 2018-10-15)
• OpenStreetMap (Maps © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA) (verified 2018-10-15)
• A Vision of Britain Through Time - useful for Boundary Changes (verified 2018-10-15)
• www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays) (verified 2018-10-15)

Resources

I have found many websites of use whilst compiling the information for this database. Here are some which deserve mention as being of special interest for Matlock, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• “The Andrews Pages”, featuring Ann Andrews' study of Matlock Churches and Chapels (null) (verified 2021-09-12)
• Notices of Civil Registration of Places of Worship for marriages are published in the London edition of The Gazette. Hint: search for registrations from 1998 by choosing 'Church' notices, and the option 'Registration for solemnising marriage'. (verified 2018-12-11)

The above links were selected and reviewed at the time I prepared the information, but please be aware their content may vary, or disappear entirely. These factors are outside my control.