INDEPENDENT/CONGREGATIONAL/UNITED REFORMED

The Independent Church was formed in Cockermouth in 1651, with George Larkham as its first pastor, a post he held for 49 years.

In 1651 just after the end of the Civil War, Robert Rickerby (or Ricardby) was expelled from his living as vicar of All Saints and went to teach at the free school in Crosthwaite. [1] Larkham, still a student at Oxford (and earlier Cambridge) and only 21 years old, was appointed in his place by the Northern Commissioner of the Commonwealth.

Rickerby refused interment of non-conformists in the churchyard. In 1671 Mrs. Lowry gave a “piece of fair land near to Cockermouth town end” to the Independent Church for a ‘burying place’ [6] and on May 18th of that year

“Sister Margaret Bowes of Cockermouth, being very aged, departed this life, and was buried the next day in the new burial-ground given to the Church at the upper end of the town of Cockermouth. She was the first that was laid there, we not having the liberty, though we have the right, to lay her body in the common burying-place belonging to the Town.” [7)

This plot of ground, near the top end of St. Helen’s Street, became known as ‘Sepulchre Close’ and was later used as allotments.

On 17 December, 1651 the church-book recorded “We first brake bread in the Public Meeting Place [All Saints Church] at Cockermouth,” the service being conducted by Thomas Larkham, father of George. George was ordained in 1652 and at the end of his first Year married Dorothy Fletcher of Tallentire Hall, great-great granddaughter of Henry Fletcher of Mary Queen of Scots fame. Membership increased rapidly and a second church was soon formed in Broughton.

With the end of the Protectorate in 1659 and the restoration of the monarchy, Larkham was in turn ejected from All Saints “by the violence of Sir George Fletcher” and Rickerby reinstated. [2] Larkham moved about with his family and spent a time imprisoned for his Puritan principles in York Castle, but the Independent Church continued. Its members met secretly in members’ houses, as meetings of more than five persons were forbidden by law except when using the Anglican Prayer Book. They gathered at night, usually at Sister Hutton’s Hemshill or at Tallentire Hall. The Declaration of Indulgence in 1672 enabled Hemshill to be registered as a church, but meetings ceased to be held there when Sister Hutton died in 1682 and were then usually held in a house at Tallentire which George Larkham had bought in 1669. There were still periods of persecution, but membership nevertheless increased.

In 1687 the Independents opened their first meeting place in Cockermouth since their ejection from All Saints. This was a converted dwelling house on the Sands which was leased to the church. 

In 1719 a chapel was erected and this was followed in 1735 by the building which later served as schoolroom and church hall. Meanwhile Larkham had died in 1700, aged 70, and been succeeded by John Atkinson under whom the church flourished. Some 400 people came to hear him, drawn from a wide area to this the first Congregational church in Cumberland. Atkinson at first apparently lived in a manse tucked away in a back street, for after the first ten years of his 32 years ministry the church spent £78 on “a front house for him to live in”.

Later in the century difficulties arose. A new minister introduced Unitarian teaching which split the congregation, some forming a group further up the town known as the High Meeting, those remaining in the 1735 building becoming known as the Low Meeting. [3] ‘Low Meeting‘ stuck even after the two congregations came together again in 1782 (and Bolton used it as recently as 1912). Unfortunately the reunion did not last. Then a very strict minister reduced the membership to 29 in 1833.

In September 1850 the congregation had recovered to such an extent that they were able to erect the present Gothic style building in front of the old one.

Seating 500 it cost some £2200 and was designed by a Maryport man, Charles Eaglesfield. The business committee concerned with the new Congregational Chapel presented General Wyndham with a lithograph “as a small acknowledgement of their gratitude for his handsome gift of ground and cottages in furtherance of this object“. [4]

Special trains ran for the opening and 1,600 attended, of whom 700 enjoyed a Cumberland tea. [5] Two weeks later the old church behind was converted into a Sunday School, which at one time had nearly 300 scholars. Thomas Armstrong of the timber firm was at this time a deacon and superintendent of the Sunday School. He died soon after the opening, in 1853, and is commemorated by a plaque in the church.

The manse in Brigham Road was bought in the mid-1940s, recently replaced by a modem house in Laithwaite Close. Extensive repairs to the church were necessary in the mid-1970s, and plans to remodel the interior were postponed because of the high cost.

In 1972, following the union of most of the Congregational churches in the country with the Presbyterian Church, the Cockermouth church became the United Reformed Church.

In 1990/91 the 1850 church was radically altered. The building was divided horizontally. Upstairs became the church; downstairs are the John Marsh Hall (named after a leading Congregational minister and scholar, whose son was architect for the transformed building), a small chapel, kitchen and toilets, This freed the earlier building behind, which was converted into ‘bed-sit’ accommodation for some ten people who came from Dovenbv Hospital, to live in the community.

Source: Bradbury History of Cockermouth chapter 28 The Non Anglican churches.