Video 4: A New Church for a New Town

My beautiful church!  Mrs Salt laid the first stone for this lovely building, way back in 1856.

 

Titus Salt commissioned local architects Lockwood and Mawson to build this church.   He paid for it out of his own pocket and it cost him £16,000.  In today's money that would be more like £1.6million. 

 

We buried a time capsule under the church. It contained a coin, a copy of a newspaper, and my friends all put their signatures into it.  

Mr and Mrs Salt along with a crowd of others attended a ceremony to bury the treasure.

The event was a washout, it poured with rain, however we all wished that future generations would find the box and remember us.

 

My old bones are resting in here.

 

On the anniversary of Titus's 150th birthday, wife of the new mill owner, Maggie Silver, donated a brand new ring of bells to the church. The original set of bells had been removed during the First World War and made into ammunition for weapons.

 

Salt was deeply religious, and built the church to encourage his workers to follow in his footsteps. The inside of the building is intricate and beautiful.  Sir Titus decorated the church with his own initials, and 'TS' can be spotted hundreds of times.

 

I remember the services we had in here.   The music was beautiful. Everyone from my mill came on a Sunday.  It was always very busy. I'm very pleased that the church is still here today - it meant a lot to me.  

 

A service to celebrate the reconstruction of the organ was held in 1950. It served as a memorial for those who died in the First World War.  Then in 1953, a service was broadcast over the radio to celebrate the 100th birthday of Salt's Mill.

 

Today, the organ is played every Sunday afternoon, whilst visitors explore the church.