Site Event/Activity record ECH6861 - Former Unitarian Chapel, Trinity Street, Chester: Rapid Desk-based Assessment of Burial Records

A desk-based assessment was undertaken in September 2017 as part of the Chester Northgate development project. The purpose of the study was to identify sources of information pertaining to the burial ground of the former Unitarian Chapel on Trinity Street, Chester (CHER 10055/1), the site of which lies wholly within the development footprint, and to assess the value of the sources identified in determining, as accurately as possible, the number of burials that were made within the graveyard during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Trinity Street chapel (CHER 10055) was built in 1699-1700 for the Presbyterian minister Matthew Henry (1662-1714). A rapidly expanding congregation necessitated the construction of a new gallery as early as 1707, and further modifications were made on at least two occasions during the nineteenth century. The chapel had become a Unitarian place of worship by the late eighteenth century, and remained so until it was demolished in the mid-1960s, when much of the Northgate area was cleared for redevelopment. Whilst the existence of a cemetery associated with the chapel was known at the time the Northgate development proposals were formulated, it was unclear whether all the burials had been removed when the site was redeveloped in the mid-1960s. The assessment has found evidence for approximately 120 burials that were made within the chapel cemetery in the period 1791-1854. The graveyard ceased to be used from 1855 at the latest, and it seems unlikely that any burials were made prior to 1791, though the possibility cannot be completely ruled out at this stage. Burial grounds existed west and south of the chapel, but it is not yet clear if these were directly contemporary, or if one was established later. The most important sources of information located are clearly the chapel’s burial registers, held by the National Archives. In most cases, it is not possible (presently, at least) to determine whether individual graves were located in the western or southern burial grounds, though it is certain that burial continued in the former, fronting onto Trinity Street, to the end of the lifetime of the cemetery, since the latest recorded burial, in September 1854, took place there. (1)