West Park United Reformed Church - Harrogate, UK - Continental Reformed and Congregational Church Sites on Waymarking.com

"West Park United Reformed Church is located in the West Park area of Harrogate, England, and is a Grade II listed building. It was designed in Nonconformist Gothic style as West Park Congregational Church by Lockwood & Mawson and completed in 1862 for around £5,000. Along with Belvedere Mansion across the road, it was intended as part of the prestigious entrance to the Victoria Park development (now West Park). For the Congregationalists it was meant to house an increasing congregation of visitors brought to the spa town by the recently-built railways. It became a United Reformed church in 1972.

Its first minister was the much-loved Reverend John Henry Gavin who died in his prime of tuberculosis and had a big funeral in which many followed the coffin. Sir Francis Crossley laid the foundation stone, Thomas Raffles preached at the opening, and Tsarina Alexandra of Russia later worshipped there. The building has a large Binns pipe organ and the tower contains a single bell cast at Whitechapel Bell Foundry. The gargoyles on the tower have chicks carved on the nest-like capitals below them, and the south wall has twelve carved heads of historical characters, including Isaac Watts, John Bunyan, John Milton and Oliver Cromwell." link

United Reformed Churches

"The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. It has approximately 46,500 members in 1,383 congregations with 608 active ministers, including 13 church related community workers.

The United Reformed Church resulted from the 1972 union of the Presbyterian Church of England and the Congregational Church in England and Wales. In introducing the United Reformed Church Bill in the House of Commons on 21 June 1972, Alexander Lyon called it "one of the most historic measures in the history of the Christian churches in this country". About a quarter of English Congregational churches chose not to join the new denomination; in England, there are three main groups of continuing Congregationalists: the Congregational Federation, the Evangelical Fellowship of Congregational Churches and the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches." link

Reformed or Congregational Denomination: United Reformed Church Status: Active House of Worship Address: West Park United Reformed Church Victoria Avenue Harrogate, Yorkshire United Kingdom HG1 1BH Date of Construction or Event Occurrence: 01/01/1862 Architect: Lockwood and Mawson Associated Website: Not listed

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