Blackett St, Chapel of St. James

A Presbyterian chapel was built on the corner of Blackett Street and Grainger Street, partly on the site of Fickett Tower (HER 1547) in 1826. John Dobson designed it - it had a pillared portico and pediment in Greek style. Internal difficulties within the chapel led to a financial crisis and soon the congregation began to dwindle. In 1830 the Church of Scotland refused to renew the licence designating St. James' as a Presbyerian Church. In 1833 St. James became a Congregational Church, the Independent Church having joined with the Presbyterians. In 1839 St. James opened a Sunday School in Pandon and collaborated with other nonconformist churches in founding the Union Day School in Pink Lane for girls from poor families. Due to the success of the Sunday School, the chapel was demolished in 1858 to construct a bigger church with a Sunday School and facilities for weekday activities. The second St. James Church opened in 1859. Wilkes and Dodds describe it as an "appalling later aberration of Gothic revival". It had a schoolroom at basement level, and the church and gallery above. The church church moved to new premises in Bath Road (Northumberland Road) in 1881. The YMCA was built here in 1900.