Independent Chapel, Liverpool Street, Salford

NEW INDEPENDENT CHAPEL, SALFORD - Yesterday the ceremony of laying the corner stone of a new independent chapel in Liverpool Street, Oldfield Road, Salford, was performed by the Rev John Addison Coombs, the minister of the independent chapel, Chapel Street, Salford. .......... Mr J H Hulme produced an inscription plate, from which he read as follows:

The foundation stone of this building, situate in Liverpool Street, Oldfield Road, Salford, in the county of Lancaster, intended for the worship of Almighty God, was laid on Friday the 29th day of September, in the first year of the reign of Victoria, Queen of England, and in the year of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 1837 by the Rev John Addison Coombs, minister of the church and congregation assembling in the Independent Chapel, Chapel Street, Salford. The first of six new chapels intended to be built by the “Manchester and Salford Congregational Association.”

“Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation” Isaiah c xxviii v16

Architects: Hayley and Brown, Manchester, Builders: W & H Southern, Salford

Mr William Hayley of the firm of Hayley and Brown, architects of the building, then placed the plate within the cavity in the stone prepared for it. ..... The chapel is a neat but plain edifice, with stock brick front and stone door cases; the front consists of a recessed centre, and the doors are in the wings, the centre being filled with a Venetian window. The external dimensions of the building are upwards of 64 feet by 37 feet; and by means of side galleries and an end gallery over the vestries for 200 Sunday scholars, it is calculated to seat about 950 persons. The building also contains a vestry and chapel-keeper’s room; and a spacious school room in the basement story, capable of holding about 600 scholars, with separate entrances for boys and girls, and staircases leading up to the galleries. It is expected to be completed early next summer, at a cost of about £2,500. The site of the chapel is on the north side of a street or intended street called Liverpool Street, which is a spacious avenue of great width, and about 1000 yards in length, extending in almost a direct line from Oldfield Road to Cross Lane.

Reference    Manchester Guardian 8 July 1837 page 1 -  contracts
Reference    Manchester Guardian 30 September 1837 page 3 – corner stone