On March 30, Sheffield Presbyterian Church began regular worship services at Hill Top Chapel.
The chapel was built in 1629 by English Puritans and Presbyterians in what is now the Attercliffe area. Many of the influential members of that community sought the licence of the bishop in York for the building and, having obtained it, they held the first services on October 30, 1630.
Their first minister was Stanley Gower, who was educated under Archbishop James Ussher of Armagh, a reformed bishop and the author of the Irish Articles of Faith. Gower served as minister at Hill Top Chapel from 1630 to 1635 and was later a delegate at the Westminster Assembly and was involved in the composition of each of the Westminster Standards.
Even after the Great Ejection of 1662 there was a reformed community in the area and an academy was begun for the training of ministers. The academy died out after 1714 and many non-conformists moved to Sheffield. The Church of England congregation continued to grow over the next two centuries and by 1832 had grown so large that a new parish church, Christ Church Attercliffe, was constructed (it was destroyed in a bombing raid in 1940).
Refurbished
Hill Top Chapel was little used after that and by 1916 all regular Sunday services were discontinued. The church lay derelict until it was refurbished in 1991 during the Student Olympic Games. The chapel was a community centre from 2002 to 2010 and then was sometimes used for prayer or special church events. However, now, once again, reformed worship and gospel preaching has returned to Attercliffe under the ministry of Kevin Bidwell.
