Ilkeston (North) - Places of Worship
w/e 15 January 2012
All this week's pictures were taken
with a Kodak DX6490
I've previously trawled through the town and photographed
public houses named after animals on an alternative Nature Trail.
I've also conducted a similar exercise looking at churches or
chapels that have been adapted for other uses, both commercial
and private. Although religious premises have appeared many times
on the website I have never devoted a whole set of photos to
them so to redress the balance this is the first of two pages
of images, initially looking at places of the worship in the
northern half of the town.
Ask anyone how many places of worship there are in Ilkeston from
Cotmanhay in the north through to Kirk Hallam in the south and
their answer would probably be eight or nine. Given a little
thought that figure might rise to the low teens but even I was
surprised to discover at least nineteen when I started to list
them.

So we'll begin our journey through the town at the top end of
Church Street in Cotmanhay where the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's
Witnesses stands. Beyond the Hall, the Chinese Take Away and
the Rose and Crown pub in this view down Church Street is the
site of Christ Church which stood on the corner of Vicarage Street.
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The old Christ Church built in 1848 was demolished in 1983 due
to mining subsidence and was replaced by a more modern building
further along Vicarage Street. Both my wife and I have a certain
affinity with the old church. Our parents were married there,
we were both baptised there, we married there and our son was
also baptised there.
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 My dad was brought
up in Cotmanhay and attended the Methodist Chapel of 1853 on
Cotmanhay Road but that is one that has assumed a new use as
residential premises. Another chapel at Cotmanhay on Norman Street
dates from a little later and the gable end bears an inscription
showing the date as 1882 (left). This is now known as Cotmanhay
Baptist Church and still continues as a place of worship.
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Norman Street leads through to Charlotte Street and meets it
just below the premises that house the Elim Christian Centre.
Beginning as a house group in the 1960s the church occupied several
sites both independently and jointly with other Christian organisations
before settling in this former clothing factory in 1993 which
was renovated to provide excellent facilities within a year of
its purchase.
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At the top of Charlotte Street on the corner of Heanor Road is
a church in a more traditional style building. The brick built
church was erected in 1936 although the origins of the church
date back to 1850 when the congregation met in their previous
building on Awsworth Road.
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 Another traditional style church but this
time built of stone stands at the junction of Cotmanhay Road
and Awsworth Road. Replacing an earlier mission church of the
1850s it was consecrated in 1884 by Bishop Maclagan who later
became the Archbishop of York. It was built in the Early English
style and four years later it assumed the role of the parish
church of the newly formed Holy Trinity parish.
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A much more recent
construction but just around the corner from Holy Trinity is
the Arena. The church was founded in 1994 and in similar fashion
to the Elim Christian Centre mentioned earlier, it met for ten
years in a former single-storey factory unit on this site. That
building was extended creating a multi-purpose conference centre
and was completed in 2004 Today it also includes a coffee shop
and a number of meeting rooms as well as the three hundred seater
main hall that allows many community activities and special events
to be held in addition to the normal church meetings.
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Moving closer to the town centre and back in time we find the
Ilkeston Salvation Army Citadel in Chapel Street just off Bath
Street. Despite much of the surrounding area being flattened
for the construction of Chalons Way and the associated road alterations
the building of 1879 has been modernised and still stands in
its original position serving the community at large.
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Almost within
touching distance of the Citadel, the Primitive Methodists had
built a chapel on Bath Street almost thirty years earlier in
1852. Like the Citadel it underwent many alterations including
the 1888 addition of school rooms and a hall on Wilmot Street.
Its lifespan extended until 1973 when the chapel was demolished
but amalgamating with the Wesleyan Chapel members from further
up Bath Street, their building also being demolished about the
same time, enabled the combined Methodist Church of St Andrew's
to be established surrounding the existing buildings on the Wilmot
Street/Bath Street corner in the process.
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The final place of worship in this first selection of images
is based in St Mary's Street at Malin House which is the home
of the Christian Community in Ilkeston, an organisation that
was first established in 1922 under the leadership of Friedrich
Rittelmeyer and is a "movement for religious renewal".
The movement is worldwide but the local programme of events in
Ilkeston shows that services are held at approximately monthly
intervals.
Click here for the
second set of images for the southern half of the town .
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