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Brook Street General Baptist Chapel,
Brook Street / Willow Row, DE1 3PF,
Derby, Derbyshire.

Cemeteries

We believe the Chapel 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 1802, but we understand it was closed in 2002.

"Brook Street Baptist Chapel founded 1803, but the Church assembling in this Chapel formed 1791" [note at the beginning of the chapel's register - see Blanche Charles's account of East Midlands General Baptist History.

Baptist doctrines were first introduced to Derby in 1789, when the Rev. Dan TAYLOR preached his first sermon in Willow Walk, close to this site. The chapel was built in 1802, and rebuilt 1814, but in 1830 a secession in the movement resulted in another chapel being built in Sacheverel Street, whilst the original church removed in 1842 to "a large mansion house in St Mary's Gate ... built in 1750 and converted to a chapel by James FENTON of Chelmsford".

Derbyshire Record Office's Non-Conformist Register Guide adds the original congregation was founded in 1791, and that the chapel in St Mary's Gate was closed in 1937. Its Baptist congregation then moved to the newly built Broadway Baptist Church (qv), outside the city centre.

After the Baptist congregation left the Brook Street chapel, it passed to "one of the Wesleyan Reform Societies then in dispute over the proposed erection of a chapel in Becket Street", and it has since then, and until recently been in Methodist use. The building has "a front of squared stone of three bays with a narrow pediment, round-arched doorway and two tiers of plain windows... a tablet above the entrance is now inscribed 'WESLEY CHAPEL'".

The rear faces Willow Walk, where it can be seen from Google 'Street View', with a sign saying the premises are now (2010) occupied by Masa restaurant Wine Bar. There is a history of the chapel on their website.

Denomination

Now or formerly Baptist/Wesleyan Methodist.

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 Chapel was located at OS grid reference SK3478236669. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Brook Street General Baptist Chapel, Derby shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Derby 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 Derby, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• Blanche Charles's webpages of East Midlands General Baptist History (null) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Today's Restaurant and Wine Bar is yesterday's Brook Street Chapel - for a glimpse of the past see Masa restaurant Wine Bar (null) (verified 2018-10-28)

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.