One of Liverpool’s oldest buildings is the Ancient Chapel of Toxteth, which will be 365 years old in November.
This stands at the foot of Park Lane by the side of which used to be a country lane and a stream that ran into the Dingle, when it was built early in the 17th Century.
Although 1618 is the date for the founding of this delightful little church, and November is chosen for anniversary celebrations, there is no known records of the actual date it opened for worship.
The chapel was probably built by local tenants and farmers on the site leased to them by Sir Richard Molyneux, a Catholic.
By the reign of James I, Toxteth was almost all Puritanical, the Aspinwall family, particularly being strong supporters, and names associated with this faith, like Jericho Lane and Farm, and the Jordan River in Otterspool Park, still linger in the district.
First minister at the chapel was Richard Mather. Born in 1596 he came to Toxteth as a schoolmaster at the age of 16.
In May 1618, he entered Brazenose College, Oxford, and returned to Toxteth in November that year to preach in the new Park Chapel.
IN GLADES OF THE DINGLE
The Puritans had often met secretly in the glades of the Dingle in those days of harsh penalties for dissenters, and even when Richard was ordained a Minister of the Established Church, he was unable to reconcile his differences of opinion.
He finally decided to exercise his ministry in the settlements of the Puritan emigrants in America and sailed there from Plymouth in 1635 in a little ship called the Mary and John.
Although many of his Puritan friends in Lancashire urged him to come home at the time of the Commonwealth, he held the ministry of a Congregational Church at Dorchester, Massachusetts, until his death in 1669.
Richard’s youngest son was made President of Harvard University in 1684. Another son, Increase and grandson Cotton, were said to have been involved in the tragic Salem witch trials of 1692, when 19 “suspects” were hanged.
The chapel was altered in 1774 and has been repaired and refurbished since. It has accommodated many well known ministers – ordained as well as Non-Conformist.
The gates and reconstructed porch and churchyard were presented by Mrs. Henry Yates Thompson, in memory of her husband.
Henry was a Freeman of the City, whose ancestors were among the earliest worshippers at the chapel. He donated the Palm House in Sefton Park to Liverpool Corporation, and one of his forebears, Richard Vaughan Yates, gave Princes Park to the City.
OVER THE CENTURIES
Many tributes have been paid to Park Chapel over the centuries, but the one which, I think, best sums us this delightful Old World gem in our midst, is contained in a letter written by the American preacher Robert Collyer in 1884, to the Rev. V.D. Davis, then Minister of the Ancient Chapel. He said “I envy only one man in England his Church, and that’s you. I think I could preach there to some purpose. It is so homely like a drawing room of the 17th Century with permanent settings... “I fell in love with Toxteth Park Chapel on sight, and with Philip Harewood, who was then the Minister, and with the tiny God’s rood (for it is not an acre) all glorious in the summer light and sweetness... “And if I could bring my mind to lay down my old bones anywhere outside this new world (I love the thought of a new sepulchre) why, it would be there.”
