Founded 1660’s Built 1702

Old Meeting House Unitarian Chapel

HeritageTrail
Starting & Finishing Point
(Old Meeting House)

The Schoolrooms Robert Porter’s House

(Old Meeting House Grounds) (Stockwell Gate)

Royce’s Shoe Factory Cromwell House

(upper Stockwell Gate) (West Gate)

The Mallatratts Samuel Brunts

(Stockwell Gate) (Toothill Lane)

John Harrop White

(Church Street/Town Hall)

A one-and-a-quarter mile Guided Stroll, lasting approximately

1½ hours, around central Mansfield, stopping at points to
recall some of the people and places of note in the more than three
hundred year story of non-conformity in Mansfield.
 Introduction

T his Heritage Trail involves a Guide leading a group of people in a 1¼ mile

stroll, lasting approximately 1½ hours, around the centre of Mansfield,
stopping and speaking briefly at significant points. Its purpose is to
highlight some of the links that the Meeting House has had, and still has, over the
past three hundred years, with the wider community of the town. It is hoped that
people going on the Trail will find it both interesting and enlightening.

To go on this Heritage Trail there is a charge of £2. This covers the cost of the
Heritage Booklet that each person receives at the end of the Trail.

The dates and times of Heritage Trails are announced in the monthly Newsletter
published by the Meeting House, or groups may wish to book their own Trail. If
so contact the Minister or Secretary of the Meeting House.

Comments on the Trail are welcome, and should be made to the Guide, Minister
or Secretary of the Meeting House. See the monthly Newsletter.

It is a joy to report that

( Name)---------------------------------------------------------------

completed this Guided Heritage Trail on

(Date) -----------------------------------------------------------------

The Guide on this Heritage Trail was

(Name)--------------------------------------------- (Signed) -----------------------------------------

Guided Heritage Trail the contents page

No.1 Early Years 1.

The Old Meeting House

No2. Robert Porter’s House 3.

Chapel Yard

No.3 Cromwell House 5.

West Gate

No.4 Samuel Brunts 7.

Toothill Lane

No.5 John Harrop White 9.

Church Street & Town Hall

No.6 The Mallatratts 11.

Santander, Stockwell Gate

No.7 Royce’s Shoe Factory 13.

Stockwell Gate

No.8 The Schoolrooms 15.

Grounds of the Old Meeting House

No.9 The Later Years 17

The Old Meeting House

The Meeting House Today 19.

 No.1 The Early Years
inside the Old Meeting House

W elcome to this Heritage Trail. This Meeting House was opened in

1702, and is the oldest non-conformist place of worship not only in
Mansfield but in the whole county of Nottinghamshire.

The chapel was built as a result of the Act of Uniformity of 1662. That Act
sought to impose on clergymen all over the country a uniformity of beliefs, of
services of worship, and of the rule of bishops. Nearly 2,000 clergymen refused
to conform, were ejected from their livings, and became known as “non-con-
formists.” In this area 8 of them found what the Rev. John Whitlock from St.
Mary’s in Nottingham described as “a Zoar and shelter and Sanctuary” here in
Mansfield. They gathered around them a group of local sympathisers. This was
the group that in 1702 built this Meeting House, following the 1689 Act of Tol-
eration. That Act allowed the non-conformists some greater freedom, though it
did not include Catholics or Unitarians.

From 1702 up to 1870 the Meeting House was and remained ”a Meeting House”
- both externally and internally. You can perhaps best get the feel of it, as it was
for its first 168 years, if you turn yourself slightly to the left. Now look up to
where the pulpit and preacher would have been… in the centre of this wall –
where the plaque to the Rev. John Williams now is. The two entrance doors would
then be in the wall behind you, with the Lord’s Table in the centre of a gathered
congregation in box pews.

8 Original Non-Conformists.
Rev. Robert Porter
Rev. John Whitlock M.A.
Rev. William Reynolds M.A.
Rev. John Billingsley M.A.
Rev. Joseph Trueman B.D.
Rev. Robert Smalley
Rev. John Cromwell
Rev. Matthew Sylvester B.A.
1
from Pentrich in Derbyshire.
from St. Mary’s in Nottingham.
from St. Mary’s in Nottingham.
from Chesterfield in Derbyshire.
from Cromwell in Nottinghamshire.
from Greasley in Nottinghamshire.
from Clayworth in Nottinghamshire.
from Great Gonerby in Lincolnshire.
The Meeting House 1702to 1870
as it was from

2
 No.2 Robert Porter’s House bottom of Chappel Yard

T his house is considered to be

one of the oldest in Mansfield,
thought to have been built
around 1650. It was certainly here by
around 1666, because it was here that
the Rev. Robert Porter B.A. lived. He
had been ejected from his living as Vicar
of Pentrich in Derbyshire, and found a
refuge in Mansfield.

According to the 1669 Report of the

Rev. John Firth, of St. Peter’s Church,
this house was also one of the main
residences where those early non-
conformists and their local sympathisers
gathered for their meetings and services
in Mansfield.
Porter’s Old House painted by the local
historian and artist, Albert S. Buxton

3
Porter also remained living here, and continued as a leader of the non-conformist
community in the town, following the Act of Toleration of 1689. That Act lifted
some of the restrictions placed on the non-conformists clergy. So that, with the
exception of Porter, and of the Rev. John Billingsley who had died in 1683 and
the Rev. John Cromwell who had moved to Norwich in 1674, the others returned
to the areas they had come from.

Porter continued to live here till his death in the January of 1690.

Among the early Trustees of the House and Chapel were members of the
Sylvester family and Robert Dodsley, father of the writer and eminent publisher
Robert Dodsley. The house long continued as the Parsonage, and still remains the
property of the Trustees of the Meeting House.

Porter’s Old House as photographed in 2015

4
 No.3 Cromwell House on West Gate

T his house, according to W. H. Groves, may have been here since around
1538. That would make it a contender for the oldest house still surviving
in Mansfield. Its inner walls are double thickness because, it’s claimed, it
originally provided hiding-holes for those on the run from the king’s soldiers -
notably Catholic Priests.

Today it is still referred to as “Cromwell House” dating back to the Rev. John
Cromwell, who, in the 1660s, lived here having been ejected from his living at
Clayworth, just north of Retford. He was one of the 8 non-conformists who
found refuge here in Mansfield, and the one who suffered the most for his non-
conformity. He was kept in prison in Newark for three years from 1663 to 1666
on suspicion of preaching rebellion. He came to Mansfield in 1666, and lived here
for eight years before moving to Norwich where he died in 1684 at the age of 53
years.

Cromwell’s House as photographed pre-1940

5
C romwell House also housed a School for Boys, between ten and thirteen
years of age, from 1788 to well into the 1800s, with the Rev. Samuel
Catlow as the first Superintendent. Catlow was Minister at the Meeting
House from 1783 to 1798. His School prospered, and attracted boys from as far
afield as Yorkshire and Warwickshire. Catlow laid out the land in front of the
house into building lots for a new street named Catlow Street. It remained so until
St. John’s Church was built in 1837 when it was renamed St. John’s Street. The
name sign at the bottom of the street shows this.

It is worth noting that until 1940 a tree stood here, close to where we are, which
was reputed to be the Centre of Sherwood Forest.

Cromwell House as photographed in 2015

6
 No.4 Samuel Brunts top of Toothill Lane

A bove us you will see a statue of Samuel Brunts, one of the most respected
citizens of Mansfield in the 17th century and early 18th century. A man
born into wealth, his influence as a benefactor is still being felt in the
town more than three hundred years later.

Samuel Brunts was born in 1637 at the family home down Church Street. He
was a broadminded and tolerant man. Although he was a devout Churchman,
worshipping at St. Peter’s, he welcomed and provided financial support to the 8
non-conformist clergymen who found refuge in Mansfield in the late 1660s. In
1708 he was a Trustee of the house Robert Porter had lived in, and when Brunts
died in 1711 he left the non-conformist congregation his annual subscription of
twenty-shillings a year - still paid annually, but now at £120 a year!

7
opposite: The Statue
of Samuel Brunts
as seen on the corner
of Toothill Lane &
Leeming Street.

I n his will he left most of his wealth in Trust to provide apprenticeships for
poor boys to learn a trade, and for poor elderly citizens to receive regular
sums of money. The Trust again provided evidence of his broadmindedness
in that he appointed both Churchmen and Non-Conformists as Trustees.

The Brunts Charity, which still has its offices here, continues to this day. It now
concentrates mainly on maintaining its 153 bungalows and flats for people over
60 years of age, but is still open to applications for financial assistance from
young people who find themselves in unusual difficulties.

A 2lst century view along Champion Crescent of today’s Brunts Bungalows for the elderly

8
 No.5 John Harrop White
Church Street / Town Hall

T he Swan Hotel, in some form, has been here since around 1586. John
Harrop White was born here in 1856, his father Robert White was the
Landlord. John was educated at the local Grove House School before
studying for his career as a Solicitor. He set up a Solicitors’ Office, now known
as “Harrop White, Vallance and Dawson”, on White Hart Street in 1979 which
continues to serve local people, though the office moved to Albert Street some
years ago.

Now we are at the old Town Hall which was built 1835/1836. It was an obvious
home in 1891 when Mansfield was granted a Charter of Incorporation. John
Harrop White was elected a member of that first Town Council, and later
served as Town Clerk for over twenty years before being elected Town Mayor
in 1923. He was the most influential of the town’s citizens. He was a Justice of
the Peace, Chairman of the Mansfield Hospital Board, a prominent member of
the Freemasons in Mansfield, Chairman of the Governors of Brunts School,
President of the Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches in 1931,
and the compiler of the invaluable history of the “Old Meeting House.”

The Swan Hotel where John Harrop was born in 1856.

9
A fully committed Unitarian, like his father before him, he is still remembered as
a regular attender at Sunday Morning Services at the Meeting House. He always
walked there, smartly dressed in tail coat, striped trousers and top hat, from his
nearby home at Layton Burrows. He never owned a motor car – claiming that
God had given him two legs for walking. He lived to be 95 years of age.

Local Citizens celebrate Mansfield being granted a Charter of Incorporation in 1891

Harrop White escorting the Princess Royal, Countess of Harewood, on her visit to
Mansfield General Hospital in 1944
10
 No.6 The Mallatratts Stockwell Gate

W here we now have this Santander bank is where the old Blue Boar Inn
used to be. It’s said to have been here from 1737 to 1888.

George Mallatratt, a local man who raised funds by rearing pigs, took over as
Landlord in 1865. He was joined by his wife Mary in 1874. They were staunch
members at the Meeting House where George had attended from being a boy. So
when George died in 1888, at the age of 56, Mary had a stained glass window –
the first one! - put in the Meeting House in his memory. The original Blue Boar
was rebuilt in 1888, and Mary continued as Landlady until her death in 1891. She
left money for another stained glass window to be put in the Meeting House in
her memory.

She also left £100 to be invested,

and the interest used to provide
the poor children of the town
with a Hot Cross Bun on
Good Friday each year. The
first distribution of Buns was
on the Good Friday of 1894
when 600 buns were given out.
The following year it was 800
buns. This annual custom has
continued ever since, except for
The Old Boar Inn as it was before 1888 a few times during war years.
There have been years when
the number of buns was over 1,000, and some years when the number of poor
children turning up for a bun was more than the number of buns available. This
annual distribution still takes place, though the number of children are few, and
the number of buns bought by the original investment of £100 is even fewer!

The Blue Boar Inn no longer exists. It became the Alliance and Leicester Building
Society in 1988, and more recently Santander.
11
 Children and Buns on a Good Friday Morning , circa 1974

Queuing up for a bun along the old Rooth Street, circa 1930
12
 No.7 Royce’s Shoe Factory Up Stockwell Gate

H ere we have a block of flats named after St. Crispin, the Patron Saint
of Shoemakers. It’s a good site to recall local industrialists and business
people who were members of the Meeting House.

There in 1837 William H. Royce and George Gascoigne set up a factory to make
riveted boots. Harold Royce joined the company in 1897, and in 1900 set up the
Mansfield Shoe Company making women’s footwear. In 1934 the shoe factory
produced one million shoes, but by 2004 the factory had so declined that it closed
down, to be replaced just a few years ago by this block of flats.

The Royces were leading members at the Meeting House. Harold was a Trustee,
Chapel Warden, and for some years Treasurer.

Earlier than the Royces were the Hollins. Henry Hollins joined with three other
partners in 1784 in setting up a Hosiery Firm at Pleasley. It was to become world
famous as William Hollins Co. Ltd., giving us the new material of “Viyella”. That
name “Viyella” was derived from the name “Via Gellia “, a road near Cromford.
William Hollins was a leading member at the Meeting House, and the financial
backer of the various alterations that were made to the Meeting House building,
internally and externally.

Also involved in the life of the Meeting House were the extended Vallance
family who were well known locally as Photographers and as Builders, as well as
Solicitors. So too was Alfred Mason, who married into the Whiting family, and
established “A. Mason Contractors Ltd”, well-known local builders from 1926
to 1987.
The material “Viyella” was registered as a trade-mark by the William Hollins Co. Ltd.
in 1894. It was a mixture of wool and cotton, and was extensively used in the manufacture
of women’s skirts and men’s shirts. The original material is no longer used but the name
“Viyella” continues as a brand name.

13
 Royce’s Shoe Factory as it was externally.

Royce’s Employees at work.

14
No.8 The Schoolrooms in the Meeting House Grounds

H ere, over the past almost two hundred years, is where a Sunday School
and a wide variety of community events have been held.

The Small Schoolroom was opened in 1837 to meet the needs of a Sunday School
which is known to have been in existence in Union Street even earlier. This accords
with the local historian, A.S Buxton, who reported that in 1821 there were forty
children attending a Sunday School run by the Unitarians. The needs grew. So
in 1885 a larger Schoolroom was attached to the small one.

For years Shrove Tuesday was the highlight of the year with a Tea, the presentation
of Sunday School Attendance book prizes, and items of entertainment. A
monthly Literary and Social Union, attracting a variety of speakers, was begun in
1889 and continued for over sixty years. There have also been many social events
such as Football Teams, Keep Fit Classes, Youth Clubs, Girl Guides, Dances
and Concerts, with wider community events such as Shoppers Services, Coffee
Mornings, and Bible Classes.

The 1939 World War had a major impact. Men were called up to serve in the
forces, the large Schoolroom was commandeered to billet soldiers, and there was
the blackout and food rationing. This resulted in a decline in the Sunday School.
Yet for a few years members of the Meeting House ran a Soldiers’ Canteen in the
room above the Small Schoolroom.

A regular Sunday School is now no more, but the rooms are still used for social
activities and weekly Coffee Mornings.
15
opposite: Sunday Scholars with their Annual Book Prizes, about 1955.

Old Meeting House Football Team for the 1897-98 Season.

A regular Saturday Coffee Morning in 2015

16
 No.9 The Later Years back in the Old Meeting House

There have been many changes here over the years.

T he building has changed dramatically – both internally and externally.

The 1870 major alteration changed it to the more traditional Church of
England layout that it now presents. This necessitated the re-siting of
the two doorways from one wall to another wall, where they now are. In 1882 an
extension on the north side was carried out to allow for Choir Stalls, and a central
Communion Table with a large window on either side. In 1890 there was more
work. The whole building was re-plastered, a dado was put in, and oak panelling
was placed around the two inner doorways. That oak came from the centre post,
dated 1587, of the disused Skerry Hill Windmill. Two stained glass windows were
also put in, one on either side of the Communion Table. So we had the building
in much the order as we see it today.

There have been changes in the Faith expressed here. The original founders
were very much traditional Christian believers - it was church authority that they
questioned! In time, especially with having the Bible in English, people began
asking questions, leading some to view Jesus more as a man to follow than a
God to worship. So came Unitarians – believers in the oneness of God. Others
moved away from Christian belief, and found truths in other world faiths. Some
have become humanists or agnostics. Our old and new services of worship and
hymnbooks reflect the shift that has taken place here. What does remain constant
is the emphasis on Religious Freedom. Long may it be so.

17
Inside

The Meeting House

1870to 1882
from

when the end wall was removed

& the building extended

A Muslim preached on
the Prophet Mohammed
in the Meeting House on
a Sunday in September
1903.

England’s first woman

Minister, Rev. Gertrude
Von Petzold, preached in
the OId Meeting House
in 1905.

In 2014 the Chapel

Committee had the
Meeting House
Registered for Same Sex
Weddings.
A Painting by Elsie Cox of the front of
the Meeting House in 1914.
18
 The Old Meeting house as it is,
externally in 2015.

The Old Meeting house as it is,

internally in 2015.

Some of the members and friends on the Annual Sponsored Walk, in 2015, in aid of the
John Eastwood Hospice

19
Acknowledgements
I am solely responsible for the script and sites chosen in this Heritage Trail
Booklet. However, I acknowledge that I have gained information from
various sources, and that I am very much indebted to John Harrop White’s
book which tells the history of the “Old Meeting House.”

I am grateful - to Niki Phillips for giving a more professional look to my own

basic layout for the front cover, to my wife Pauline for proof-reading my script, to
Jodie Henshaw of the Mansfield Museum and Annie Perry of the Old Mansfield
Society for help in tracing photographs and copyright owners, and to Mansfield
Bid for their help in meeting the costs of publishing.

For permission to use their photographs I am grateful to the following: the

Mansfield Museum for “The Statue of Samuel Brunts,” “Mansfield Celebrations
in 1891” and “Royce’s Shoe Factory,” the Old Mansfield Society for “The Swan
Hotel,” “Cromwell House with Tree,” “Harrop White with Princess Royal,” “The
Old Blue Boar” and the painting of the “Meeting House in 1914,” Bilsthorpe
Musem for “Children queuing along old Rooth Street,” Mansfield and Ashfield
Newspapers for “Royce’s Factory Workers,” Mark Hare for “Porter’s House,”
“Cromwell House,” “Bungalows on Champion Crescent,” “Old Meeting House
externally in 2015” and “Coffee Morning in 2015,” Patrick Timperley for
“Sponsored Walkers,” Christine Wright for “Football Team 1897-98,” and Ann
Binch for “Children With Hot Cross Buns” and “The Sunday School Scholars
With Their Book Prizes”.

If I have infringed any copyright I do apologise, and will gladly make amends if
this booklet is re-published. - Derek Smith
 Roof
The

that
Tells its

Tale by Don Ryder

Three hundred years have I looked down
Upon the good folk of this old town;
Early folk, told they could only meet
One hundred yards from any street,
So here I stand to this very day,
Remote from any well-trodden way,
Welcoming all to enter my door,
No matter if you be rich or poor.

Three hundred years have I looked down

Upon the good folk of this old town;
Thousands I’ve seen pass the doors below,
Many the fashion I’ve seen come and go.
Crinoline, bustle, and powdered wig,
Pony trap, and horse drawn gig,
Gas, electric to light the street,
To light this place where people meet.

Three hundred years have I looked down

Upon the good folk of this old town,
Bonnie Prince Charlie, Bach, and Mozart,
I saw them come, and then depart.
But I’ve seen the coming of Christmas trees,
Refrigerators – and frozen peas,
Things that fly, with no beat of wings,
Oh my! I’ve seen so many things.

These verses are part of a somewhat longer poem by Don Ryder, which he read at a
Special Service to celebrate the construction of a New Roof on the OId Meeting House in 2013.