Brook Street Chapel, is in the town of
Knutsford
Knutsford () is a market town in the borough of Cheshire East, in Cheshire, England. Knutsford is south-west of Manchester, north-west of Macclesfield and 12.5 miles (20 km) south-east of Warrington. The population at the 2011 Census was ...
,
Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the
National Heritage List for England
The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...
as a designated Grade I
listed building
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 ...
.
The chapel was built in soon after the passing of the
Act of Toleration 1689
The Toleration Act 1688 (1 Will & Mary c 18), also referred to as the Act of Toleration, was an Act of the Parliament of England. Passed in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, it received royal assent on 24 May 1689.
The Act allowed for ...
.
It is built in red brick with a stone-flagged roof in two storeys with two external staircases. Inside is a gallery on three sides and a
pulpit on a long wall. The pulpit dates from the late 17th or early 18th century and the pews from 1859.
It is the burial place of the
novelist
A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...
Mrs Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many st ...
who died in 1865, her husband
William Gaskell
William Gaskell (24 July 1805 – 12 June 1884) was an English Unitarian minister, charity worker and pioneer in the education of the working class. The husband of novelist and biographer Elizabeth Gaskell, he was himself a writer and poet, and ...
who died in 1884, and their two unmarried daughters who died in 1908 and 1913.
It is still in use as a
Unitarian chapel.
See also
*
Grade I listed churches in Cheshire
Cheshire is a county in North West England. In 1974 parts of the historical county of Cheshire were transferred to Greater Manchester and to Merseyside, and parts of the historical county of Lancashire were incorporated into Cheshire, includ ...
*
Grade I listed buildings in Cheshire East
*
Listed buildings in Knutsford
References
External links
*
The Gaskell Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brook Street Chapel, Knutsford
Unitarian chapels in England
Knutsford, Brook Street Chapel
17th-century Protestant churches
Knutsford
17th-century churches in the United Kingdom