Congregational Church, Scots Lane, Salisbury

The house of George Whitmarsh was licensed for Independent or Congregation worship in the 1670s but there is apparently no link between this and later Congregationalists in the city. A group was meeting in 1757 and in 1766 the then minister, John Wheeler, was provided with two houses in Scots Lane by William Warne. A chapel was erected at the rear of one house and registered for worship in 1767. Numbers grew and the chapel was enlarged in 1791. In 1806 a secession from the chapel led to the founding of the Congregation chapel in Endless Street, which was registered in 1810. The Scots Lane chapel was enlarged in 1829 by the addition of schoolrooms and a vestry. In 1860 the Scots Lane and Endless Street churches reunited and and the Endless Street chapel, with 800 sittings was chosen as the meeting place. The chapel at Scots Lane had only 150 free and 380 other sittings and the total evening service at the two chapels could be over 800 people. The Scots Lane buildings were used as schoolrooms for the British School, until it closed in 1888, and then as a Sunday School until 1890. A new Congregational church had been built in Fisherton Street in 1879 and the Scots Lane premises were then sold to help pay for it.