The chapel itself is a registered "Historic Building Grade II".
The congregation dates back to 1662 when Rev. Thomas Leadbetter was
'ejected' from the local parish church under the Act of Uniformity for
failing to use the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Services were held
illegally until 1672 when "toleration" allowed a private house to
be registered for worship.
By 1722 a parcel of land on the edge of Hinckley had been bought and
the current chapel erected, surrounded by gardens and orchards on 3 sides.
The building was also an academy for students to the ministry and the famous
Rev. Dr. Phillip Doddridge was a student and preached his first sermon
here in 1722.
The building contains many historic treasures, including an egg-cup pulpit
which was brought from the parsonage in 1722. The gallery dating from 1727
still has its original layout of box pews and the roof of the chapel is
supported by two solid oak columns made out of whole tree trunks. The organ
was installed at the end of the 19th century. The floor to ceiling wall
hangings either side of the pulpit date from 1902 and were embroidered by
members of the congregation.
Members of the congregation also helped to found the local hospital, library,
Co-operative Society, Building Society and Museum. The chapel has and always
will be an oasis of liberal religion, and a Hindu and a Buddhist conducted
services here in 1906.
Joseph Dare has connections with both the town and the chapel having grown up and
married in Hinckley, and run a boys' school in the chapel.
He went on to have a profound effect on
housing and health in Victorian Leicester and is buried in Welford Road Cemetery.
Further historical and achitectural information about Hinckley Great Meeting can be found in the
"G" section of Hinckley Netfirms website and the history and architecture of
other Hinckley buildings can be found on the main web site.
There are services each Sunday at 11 a.m. & 6 p.m. and a meditation
service at 1 pm. on the last Friday of the month. 
There
is a Childrens' club most Sunday mornings at 11 a.m..
The chapel is also available for customised marriages,
same-sex blessings, funerals,
namings and other celebrations. Please contact the minister (details below) if
you wish to arrange a celebration.
We have recently celebrated the blessing of a
civil marriage between two Hindus, a Hindu funeral, and marriages between local
people and their partners from Indonesia and Afghanistan.
"I would like to say a big thank-you to you for making Riley's christening such a special one; lots of our guests commented on your service and just how perfect it was in every way."
"Thank you for the very special personal approach you brought to the funeral service. It meant a lot to me and there was some very 'positive feedback' from relatives and friends. 'What a lovely service', and 'it was very moving' were a few quotes.
Our chapel and denomination has a tradition of creating ceremonies for divorcees, and open/mixed marriages, one of our previous ministers having been a member of the Hibbert Trust working party on "Rites of Passage".
We pride ourselves on responding to spiritual
needs as they occur in the past; we have run "Building your own Theology" courses to help people
discover their own religious identity, and courses on conducting worship. We are
currently running a monthly discussion course on theological issues.
who became our minister in February 2007 joined the Unitarian denomination
over 10 years ago. As a child she
was a member of the Anglican church but during her teenage years came to consider herself an atheist but has moved to a more theistic position over the past 30 years. She has
been married for over 30 years to Donald who is minister to the Cotswold group of Unitarian
churches (Cheltenham, Cirencester,
Evesham, Gloucester, and
Ross-on-Wye). They have no children but two very spoilt cats!
Linda's first degree is in German but she worked in Personnel Management for
over 25 years; she trained for the ministry in 2003 and qualified in 2005; she initially ministered to
Newport on the Isle of Wight. She spent two summers ministering to Trowbridge whilst training. Linda was one of the four people featured in the video
"Unitarians", copies of which are available from our webmaster.
Minister:
Chairman:
Treasurer:
Secretary & Newsletter Editor:
Publicity Officer: Margaret Meigh
Social Secretary: Gordon Turner
Webmaster:
Our chapel's favourite charities
Chapel Diary - what have we been doing recently
Chapel Photo Album - pictures of chapel events (on-going)
This site is listed in the British Towns and Villages Encyclopaedia of Great Britain and we can be found in the entry for Hinckley