The Cemetery The Castle Union Workhouse General Hospital Holy Trinity Church St Alban's Church Black Boy School Cotswold Playhouse Wesley Chapel/Salvation Army Old Meeting Chapel
WM Old Meeting Chapel by kind permission of Wilf Merrett
What: Historic site c1710
Where: GL5 1DY   Chapel Street
Then: The earliest nonconformist chapel built in Stroud. 
Now: The chapel was demolished in 1977.  Its neighbouring Sunday School building still exists and is used as a place of worship.

The Old Meeting chapel was built about 1710, for a Congregationalist meeting which had formerly worshipped in a barn in Silver Street. In 1844, S.S. Marling paid for the front of the chapel to be rebuilt in the neo-Norman style.

The size of the congregation fluctuated in the 18th century, but it grew rapidly in the early 19th century, under the active ministry of John Burder. In 1835-37, the Bedford Street Chapel was built as a daughter church. In 1970, the two were reunited and the Old Meeting was closed. Some of the memorial plates of local families and a stained glass window were preserved and are kept by Stroud Museum.

Some of the most prominent families associated with Stroud worshipped here: the Tanners, Okeys, Paines, Viners, Bloxsomes and Henry Wyatt of Farmhill.

From January 2016, this website is managed by Stroud Local History Society

Revised 2018 EMW