Shrewsbury Unitarian Church is a

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

building situated on the High Street in

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Sh ...

, England. The

meeting house A meeting house (meetinghouse, meeting-house) is a building where religious and sometimes public meetings take place. Terminology Nonconformist Protestant denominations distinguish between a * church, which is a body of people who believe in Chr ...

was founded in its present site in 1662 by the Revd

Francis Tallents Francis Tallents (1619–1708) was a non-conforming English Presbyterian clergyman. Background, early life and education Francis Tallents was of partly Huguenot ancestry. He was the eldest son of Philip Tallents, whose own father, a Frenchman, ac ...

and the Revd John Bryan, two dissenters ejected fro
St Mary's Church, Shrewsbury
and St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury respectively. It was destroyed by a mob of Jacobite supporters in 1715 but rebuilt the same year. In 1798,

Samuel Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake P ...

accepted the position of minister at the church, (salary £120 a year) and the effect of his first sermon is recorded by the 19-year-old

William Hazlitt William Hazlitt (10 April 177818 September 1830) was an English essayist, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English lan ...

from Wem. Arriving in Shrewsbury at 8 p.m. on Saturday 13 January, he preached his first sermon on 14 January and with two others on 21 and 28 January, allowing him to leave Shrewsbury on 29 January for Cote House, the home of John Wedgewood at Westbury near Bristol. Coleridge's stay in Shrewsbury was just over two weeks before being offered £150 a year from Thomas Wedgwood to give up his position and study poetry and philosophy.

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...

worshipped at the church until he was eight years of age when his mother died in 1817. The whole building was rebuilt on its present site in 1839-40 by local architect, John Carline, Jnr with money provided by George the First's government. The town plan of 1882 shows it had a small courtyard, which was removed when the High Street was widened, and that it seated 350 people. In 1885 its present stone façade was made designed by another local architect, A.B. Deakin.

References

External links

Website
Churches in Shrewsbury Grade II listed churches in Shropshire Unitarian chapels in England {{UK-struct-stub