Image taken by Chris Connell

The Water Lane United Reform Church is an imposing building on Water Lane, built in 1860 to replace an earlier church on the site, to accommodate the significant non-conformist population of Bishops Stortford.  The particular strand was Congregational, rather than Baptist, Methodist or Quaker.

The building was designed by W. F. Poulton, an architect based in Reading, who appears to have been the go-to architect of the period for the non-conformist community, designing over 70 churches and chapels with his partner and brother-in-law W. H .Woodman.  It is of a Romanesque style with Italianate detail and built using white bricks commonly found in buildings in the Cambridge area.  This can be contrasted with the neo-Gothic and early English styles using stone or dressed flint, for contemporary Church of England buildings in the town, such as Holy Trinity Church, South Street, and the chapels at the Cemetery.  Behind the twin towers, the main body of the church is ovoid in shape.  The internal styling, with curved pews and a two-tiered gallery also reflected the non-conformist tradition of a more inclusive style of worship.

Engraving from Sep 1860, soon after opening – copyright Bishop’s Stortford Museum

The new building could hold 800 adults and 300 children.  The children, including pupils from the Non-Conformist Grammar School (later Bishops Stortford College) would sit in the gallery.  Whilst it was being built, the congregation met in the Corn Exchange.  In the 1860’s, there was a transition in the name of the church, from the Independent Chapel to, by 1878, the Congregational Chapel and this changed again in 1972, following a merger with the Presbyterian Church, to become the United Reform Church.