The diversity in religion that had been growing over a century was ended by the Act of Uniformity of 1662. About a fifth of all ministers and in many instances their congregations, were driven out of the established church, surviving underground. The Toleration Act of 1689 enabled these congregations to worship again in relative freedom, relative because it took until 1813 for Unitarianism to be legalised, however it was from these beginnings in the seventeenth century that the meeting houses for the various independent religious bodies came to be built.

 

As generally enlightened and progressive people, these newly independent congregations devised new forms of building for their worship now known as the "Meeting House form", and Churchgate Street is a distinguished surviving example.

 

    The first clear reference to the congregation, then described as the Presbyterian Society, was in 1678. But it was William and Mary's Act of Toleration of 1689 that enabled the congregation to take steps to provide themselves with a building of their own. A Deed of Settlement dated 6th March 1690 refers to "One messuage" in Churchgate Street, being placed in trust in the names of twelve persons who are to take down the messuage and on its site build a meeting house for the society of which Samuel Bury is minister. Why it took a further twenty years to carry out this intention is another of the gaps in our knowledge, but the building took place in 1711 and the date still stands on the lead rainwater heads on the street frontage.

Samuel Bury was the first clearly stated minister of the congregation. His portrait has survived until today and normally hangs on the wall to the left of the pulpit.

 

Unitarian views were emerging in such congregations throughout the country from the late 17th century, but the use of the name was not permitted until the early 19th century. This was, of course, the period when the industrial revolution was gathering pace, the American Colonies had chosen independence, (incidentally, Thomas Jefferson, author of the American Declaration of Independence, was a Unitarian), and the French Revolution had occurred.

 

In the twentieth century the congregation has fluctuated in strength. In what must have been a relatively prosperous period, wooden screens were erected under the front galleries. They were dark brown and the whole place tended to have a dark brown look by the 1950's when the congregation became too weak to continue to maintain or use the building and it became the responsibility of the Unitarian Trustees.