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3 church buildings in the last 300 years!
The old church building, located in
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The Prior to this the church building was situated in This church building had been built only in the mid 1800s on the banks of the TCM aquired land on the corner of the High Street and By 1972 TCM opened the doors to its new church building and has remained there ever since. The very early history of the Thomas Cooper Memorial Baptist Church can be traced right back to the late 1500s and early 1600s when there was a split from the church which is now known as the Anglican Church. The name of the church we know now as TCM, was not given until many later years. Those who had split from the Anglican Church became known as ‘Separatists’ and as time went on there was much intimidation and persecution towards them, and so in 1606, John Smyth, the leader of the group, and his followers were exiled to Amsterdam in Holland where they joined a group of people called ‘Anabaptists’. They remained there until 1620, when some of the group sailed in the Mayflower, for New England and others, after some time, returned to
The old church, known as The General Baptist Church, was a very small building with a burial ground backing down to the river and it was here people were baptised by immersion. Because of the need for a greater meeting area, in 1860 the church building was rebuilt to accommodate this need. The congregation varied in number over the ensuing years going through lean times to times of great blessings, and in 1884, because of growing requirements, the original church building was taken down and a larger building was constructed. The old building (pictured on the right) was then The new church building was opened on 2 May 1886 and it was because of the ministry of one Thomas Cooper, Chartist, historian etc., that the church became known as the Thomas Cooper Memorial Mission, and even later, Thomas Cooper Memorial Baptist Church, where the Word of God was preached faithfully for a number of years. The original church building then became the meeting hall. |




The original