United Reformed Church, Stamford

The current church stands on land purchased in 1719 following the destruction in 1714 of an earlier, late seventeenth-century chapel in nearby St Paul’s Street by a Jacobite mob. The new chapel, constructed in 1720, held 300 worshippers but was itself demolished in 1819 to make way for the present place of worship. Until 1923, when a small seventeenth-century building on the west side of Star Lane was demolished, entry to the lane was extremely narrow and the view of the church from the south thus far less obvious than it appears today.

The present church was erected over a few months in 1819 “on a large scale to reflect its increasing respectability” seating 800; it cost £1,800.