{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}} The '''Gravel Pit Chapel''' was established in 1715–{{start date and age|1716|p=y}} in Hackney, then just outside London, for a Nonconformist congregation, which by the early 19th century began to identify itself as Unitarian. In 1809 the congregation moved to the New Gravel Pit Chapel nearby, while its old premises were taken over by Congregationalists. The New Gravel Pit Chapel was closed and demolished in {{end date and age|1969|p=y}}.
==History== The Gravel Pit Chapel was established in 1715–1716 in Hackney, then a village north-east of London, for a Presbyterian congregation seceding from that of John Barker, after the death of Matthew Henry.<ref name="Nonc">{{cite web |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22714|title=Hackney: Protestant Nonconformity |editor=T. F. T. Baker |publisher=Institute of Historical Research |year=1995 |work=A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 10: Hackney |accessdate=17 June 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22703 |title=Hackney: Homerton and Hackney Wick |editor=T. F. T. Baker |publisher=Institute of Historical Research |year=1995 |work=A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 10: Hackney |accessdate=17 June 2013}}</ref> It took its name from the gravel pit near the bowling green in Mare Street.<ref name="Nonc"/>
In 1809 the congregation moved to new premises in Paradise Place in 1809, and began to identify itself as Unitarian. The original building, from then on known as the "Old Gravel Pit Chapel", was taken over by Congregationalists.
The site of the Old Gravel Pit Chapel on Chatham Place still exists;<ref name="heritage"/> in 2004 the site was in use as a shoe factory,<ref name="heritage">{{Cite web |url=http://www.ukunitarians.org.uk/pulse/heritage.shtml |title=www.ukunitarians.org.uk, ''London Unitarian Heritage Trail''. |access-date=18 June 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130129062726/http://www.ukunitarians.org.uk/pulse/heritage.shtml |archive-date=29 January 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> and by 2013 was a branch of Aquascutum.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Mohammed |first1=Syma |title=Bulldozer threat to historic pub as Pringle store in Hackney may make way for seven-storey shopping complex |url=https://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/bulldozer-threat-to-historic-pub-as-pringle-store-in-hackney-may-make-way-for-seven-storey-shopping-complex-1-1968987 |accessdate=24 January 2020 |work=Hackney Gazette |language=en}}</ref>
The New Gravel Pit Chapel was described in 1908 as being at the west end of Retreat Place, a row of almshouses.<ref>G. E. Mitton, Sir Walter Besant (editor), ''Hackney and Stoke Newington'' (1908), pp. 16–7; [https://archive.org/stream/hackneystokenewi00mittiala#page/16/mode/2up archive.org.]</ref> It was rebuilt in a Gothic style in 1857, and remained in use until it was damaged during the Blitz in 1940.<ref name="Nonc"/> The congregation continued to meet in Aspland Hall (the Chapel's church hall, erected in 1912) where they largely remained even when repairs to the Chapel were completed in 1953, due to the cost of heating the Chapel. The last service in the repaired chapel was a 300th anniversary foundation commemoration held on 2 October 1966. The Greater London Council purchased the site and demolished the Chapel in 1969, in order to build flats.<ref name="Layers of London">{{cite journal |last1=Rushton |first1=Alan |title=Unitarian gothic : rebuilding in Hackney 1858 |journal=Hackney History |date=1995 |volume=1 |pages=20–24 |url=https://hackneyhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/HH_Vol_1-copy.pdf |access-date=1 March 2021}}</ref> The burial ground survives and includes historical references to some of the people buried in the grounds.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bartholomew |first1=Emma |title=The Gravel Pit Chapel: The radical congregation buried in Hackney's secretive walled-off graveyard |url=https://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/hackney-history-the-gravel-pit-chapel-3632442 |access-date=1 March 2021 |work=The Hackney Gazette |publisher=Archant |date=18 June 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Gubbins |first1=Sean |title=Unitarian Gothic - New Gravel Pit Chapel, Chatham Place |url=https://www.layersoflondon.org/map?l=eyJmcmVlX3RleHRfcXVlcnkiOm51bGwsInNlYXJjaF9wYWdlIjoxLCJjYXRlZ29yeV9hbmRfdGVybV9maWx0ZXJzIjp7InRlcm1faWQiOm51bGwsImNhdGVnb3J5X2lkIjoxfSwiYWN0aXZlX2xheWVyX2dyb3VwX2lkcyI6W119&m=eyJjZW50ZXIiOls1MS41MDc0LDAuMTI3OF0sInpvb20iOjEwLCJsaWdodHNPdXQiOmZhbHNlfQ%3D%3D&record=9334 |website=Layers of London |access-date=1 March 2021}}</ref>
===Original Gravel Pit congregation=== The Mare Lane congregation went back to William Bates (1668).<ref name="Vest">[http://www.unitarian.org.uk/docs/publications/1897_VestigesOfProtestant.pdf ''Vestiges of Protestant Dissent'' by George Eyre Evans (PDF), at pp. 145–6.]{{Dead link|date=January 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>
*1716 Daniel Mayo and George Smith or Smyth<ref>{{cite book|author=John Davies|title=An account of the Old gravel pit meeting house, Hackney, with notices of its ministers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1hAHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA14|accessdate=17 June 2013|year=1853|page=14}}</ref><ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Mayo, Daniel|volume=37}}</ref> *1723–1747? George Smith alone<ref name="Vest"/> *1747 Thomas Mole<ref name="Vest"/> *1754–1758 Thomas Dawson<ref name="Vest"/> *Timothy Laugher, died 1769 *1770–1791 Richard Price<ref name="Vest"/><ref>{{cite book|author=John Davies|title=An account of the Old gravel pit meeting house, Hackney, with notices of its ministers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1hAHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA22|accessdate=17 June 2013|year=1853|page=22}}</ref> *To 1792 Thomas Morgan<ref name="Vest"/> *1791–1794 Joseph Priestley<ref name="Vest"/> *1793–1794 Michael Maurice<ref name="Vest"/><ref>{{cite book|author=David Young|title=F. D. Maurice and Unitarianism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KrV0QdT0ouIC&pg=PA65|accessdate=18 June 2013|year=1992|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-826339-5|page=65}}</ref> *1794–1805 Thomas Belsham<ref name="Vest"/> *1805 Robert Aspland<ref name="Vest"/>
===New Gravel Pit Chapel=== The Unitarian New Gravel Pit congregation first met on 4 November 1810, in a new building designed by the architect Edmund Aikin, nephew of Anna Letitia Barbauld, who provided his services without charge.<ref>{{cite book|author=Robert Brook Aspland|author-link=Robert Brook Aspland|title=Memoir of the Life, Works and Correspondence of the Rev. Robert Aspland, of Hackney|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U61XBPIFNrMC&pg=PA255|accessdate=18 June 2013|year=1850|publisher=E.T. Whitfield|page=255}}</ref> It included Charles Hennell, David Ricardo and Daniel Whittle Harvey.<ref name="Nonc"/>
*1810–1845 Robert Aspland<ref name="Vest"/> *1843–1846 Thomas Sadler<ref name="Vest"/> *1847–1852 John Boucher<ref name="Vest"/> *1853–1857 Thomas Lethbridge Marshall<ref name="Vest"/>
In 1858 the chapel was rebuilt in a Dissenting Gothic style, to the designs of Arthur Ashpitel.<ref name="Nonc"/><ref>[http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/robertbrookaspland.html Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography, ''Robert Brook Aspland''.]</ref>
*1858–1869 Robert Brook Aspland<ref name="Vest"/> *1870–1891 James Thornely Whitehead<ref name="Vest"/> *1893 Samuel Fletcher Williams.<ref name="Vest"/><ref>[http://booth.lse.ac.uk/cgi-bin/do.pl?sub=search_catalogue_pages&args=harriet+-+fl+1890+nun+unmarried+woman+,or,280,300 booth.lse.ac.uk, ''Search survey notebook''.]</ref>
===Old Gravel Pit Chapel (Congregationalist)=== In 1810 a congregationalist group, who had seceded from the Ram's Chapel in Homerton after the death of John Eyre,<ref name="Nonc"/> leased the old Gravel Pit Chapel, then in Morning Lane, Hackney.<ref name="HHBT">{{Cite web |url=http://www.hhbt.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9&Itemid=11 |title=Hackney Historic Buildings Trust, ''History of The Round Chapel''. |access-date=17 June 2013 |archive-date=17 August 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130817123629/http://hhbt.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9&Itemid=11 |url-status=dead }}</ref> They had gathered from 1804 at Homerton College.<ref name="Nonc"/>
*1811–1850 John Pye Smith *John Davies *J. De K. Williams.<ref>{{cite book |author=Benjamin Clarke|editor=David Mander|title=Glimpses of Ancient Hackney and Stoke Newington|year=1986 |publisher=London Borough of Hackney|isbn=1870165004|page=99}}</ref>
The last service in the Old Gravel Pit Chapel was held in 1871. The congregation moved to the new Round Chapel, on the Clapton Park Estate,<ref name="Nonc"/><ref name="HHBT"/> in Upper Clapton. From 1874 there was an Old Gravel Pit mission in the building.<ref name="Nonc"/>
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
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Category:Former churches in London Category:1716 establishments in Great Britain Category:Demolished buildings and structures in London Category:Buildings and structures demolished in 1969