We have 3 Images Above Photograph(s)
Copyright of Mike Berrell/Paul Slater
See more of Mike's photos on
The Churches of Britain and Ireland website.

Duffield Evangelical Baptist Church,
Town Street / Makeney Road, DE56 4BD,
Duffield, Derbyshire.

Cemeteries

This Church has (or had) 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 1807, and we understand it is still open.

The account of the General Baptist Chapel in Duffield, in the booklet Non-Conformist Chapels and Meeting Houses, Derbyshire (1986) tells us that the congregation meeting here was formed in 1807. Its first meeting house was opened in 1809, in a disused factory, but the present building dates from 1830. Its datestone, above the north doorway, reads 'General Baptist Chapel, and has the letters 'I' 'T' either side of the date ("for James TAYLOR". The adjacent building - a two-storied Sunday School and vestry 'range' - was added in 1877. Monuments, realigned west of the chapel include Arabella Stanley, 1834.

The sources for their information are The History of the English General Baptists Vol 2, by Adam Taylor (1818), and A Condensed History of the General Baptists of the New Connexion by James Hurford Wood (1847). The former of these two volumes contains a lengthy account of the formation of the congregation in Duffield (pp.365-8), and can be consulted online thanks to The eBook and Texts Archive. Briefly, Mr. Joseph Barrow, a valuable and zealous member of the church at Derby" was invited by a Mr. Taylor, "a respectable inhabitant of Duffield" to preach, and he "delivered the first discourse in that village, March 21st, 1807". He attracted a large number of followers, and in 1810 they formed themselves into a distinct church, by which time there were 47 members. The society continued to grow, and in 1812, when Mr. Richard Ingham, who had spent some time at the Academy" accepted an invitation to become their regular minister, there were 90 members.

By late 1884, evidently, it became a venue for marriages, as the following notice in The London Gazette of 2nd June 1885 (p.2539) indicates:

NOTICE is hereby given, that a separate building, named the General Baptist Chapel, situate at Duffield, in the parish of Duffield, in the county of Derby, in the district of Belper, being a building certified according to law as a place of religious worship, was, on the 17th day of December, 1884, duly registered for solemnizing marriages therein, pursuant to the Act of 6th and 7th Wm. 4, cap. 85. Dated 22nd December 1884.

Denomination

Now or formerly Baptist (Independent Evangelical).

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 is located at OS grid reference SK3457242854. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Duffield Evangelical Baptist Church, Duffield shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Duffield 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 Duffield, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• The “Wayback Machine” Internet Archive of The eBook and Texts Archive (null) (verified 2018-11-07)
• 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.