Bank Street Unitarian Chapel

Bank Street Chapel has its origins in a congregation established by the ejected Presbyterian minister Richard Goodwin at Great Bolton, Lancashire, in 1672.

He began preaching there after taking advantage of the Royal Declaration of Indulgence which relaxed the stipulations of the Five Mile Act 1665.

[4] The congregation, which by the 1720s amounted to over 1,000 people,[6] initially followed the precepts of Presbyterianism but moved to Unitarianism around the time of the short ministry of Thomas Dixon junior, prior to Philip Holland taking charge.

Hardman notes that the Bank Street ministers had "long been wrestling with problems of human morality in relation to divine grace" up to that time and that Dixon's changes caused a break-up among the congregation that "since 1672 [had been] the spiritual home of many of the old mercantile families of the neighbourhood".

[12] The building today carries a plaque commemorating its association with Eagle Street College, a group of local people who admired Walt Whitman and counted the chapel and its school among their meeting venues.