Underbank Chapel

The congregation dates its founding to 1652, when it first began to meet in a converted barn on an adjoining site. This was established when Richard Spoone left land and a building in his will to establish a “preaching minister”. As the chapel was founded during the Commonwealth of England, the minister was of the Presbyterian denomination. The setting up of this chapel of ease allowed the people of the Stannington district to worship locally for the first time, as prior to this the nearest church was the Church of St Nicholas at High Bradfield, some five km away. By about 1700 they counted themselves Dissenters. By the year 1740 the original chapel had become unfit for use and Thomas…

Underbank Chapel is generally considered as being a distinctive and interesting example of its type as an eighteenth-century Dissenters' meeting house. It was chosen as the cover photograph for The Unitarian Heritage: An Architectural Survey of Chapels and Churches in the Unitarian Tradition in the British Isles. The book describes it as "an extremely sophisticated design" by an unknown person.