Emmanuel Church in the former Emmanuel URC building, depicting Puritans with Cambridge connections. From left to right:
Henry Barrow,
John Greenwood,
Oliver Cromwell,
John Milton,
Francis Holcroft and
Joseph Hussey Originally a
congregational church, Emmanuel voted to join the new
United Reformed Church in 1972. Emmanuel had been known by different names over the years, first as the 'Hog Hill Independent Church' and then the 'Emmanuel Congregational Chapel' or 'Emmanuel Congregational Church'. The Emmanuel congregation was founded as the Cambridge 'Great Meeting' in 1687, at Hog Hill, the original building being there, on what is now the Old Music School in
Downing Place. From 1691 the minister was
Joseph Hussey; he was commemorated in the stained glass in the apse of the Emmanuel church building alongside
John Greenwood,
Henry Barrow,
Oliver Cromwell,
John Milton and
Francis Holcroft. Hussey's congregation split in 1696, with some going to the meeting in
Green Street, Cambridge, and again after he had left for London, in 1721, with a group founding the precursor of St Andrew's Street Baptist Church, Cambridge. The church was rebuilt on the same site, opening as Emmanuel Congregational Chapel in 1790. The move to the new church on
Trumpington Street, called the Emmanuel Congregational Church, came in 1874. Prior to September 2020, Emmanuel United Reformed Church occupied the Trumpington Street building. It was built to a design by the architect
James Cubitt in 1875. The church was listed as
Grade II in 1996. The building was sold to Pembroke College to form part of the college's Mill Lane development project. In the years leading up to the merger, Emmanuel organised regular
Sunday worship and a programme of community activities in the recent past: a volunteer-staffed
fairtrade cafe, a series of
lunchtime music recitals and a share in Hope Cambridge's
Churches Homeless Project. The Cambridge branch of the
Open Table Network was founded here in July 2018.
St Columba's Church St Columba's was originally a Presbyterian church. A Presbyterian congregation was first registered in Cambridge in 1689, at that time based in Green Street. The congregation of St Columba's was formally established in 1881, initially worshipping in
Cambridge Guildhall. The St Columba’s church building, on the corner of Downing Place and
Downing Street, was built in 1891 in the Early English style to the designs of Scottish architect
John Macvicar Anderson. In the years leading up to the merger, St Columba's, the church's programme included regular Sunday worship, hosting a group therapy centre, and a night-time drop-in centre hosted by Cambridge Street Pastors. The newly restored building was rededicated in November 2021.
People Ministers of Emmanuel Church have included: • 1738–1754
John Conder • 1767–1788 Joseph Saunders • 1859–1865 Thomas Campbell Finlayson • 1871–1872
James Ward • 1894–1901
P. T. Forsyth • 1902–1909 William Boothby Selbie • 1910–1942 Henry Child Carter • 1974-1982 Anthony (Tony) Coates • Derek M Wales • 1997-2003 Paul Quilter • -2014 Lance Stone • 2017-2020 John Bradbury Ministers of St Columba's Church: • 1893-1901 Halliday Douglas • 1902-1909 G. A. Johnston Ross • 1910-1919 Robert Strachan • 1919-1925 Innes Logan • 1926-1937 George Barclay • 1938-1943 T. Ralph Morton • 1944-1960 Albert Cooper • 1961-1981 Ronald Speirs • 1982-1996 Ernest Marvin • 1997-2008
Keith Riglin • 2010-2025 Nigel Uden Among the other people who have been associated with the two churches over the years,
Michael Ramsey, who later became Archbishop of York, worshipped at what was then Emmanuel Congregational church as a child, where his father was a deacon. Among those listed on the Roll of Honour of Missionaries valedicted from St Columba's Church are two notable ecumenists,
William Paton to India in 1919 (first general secretary of what is now the
National Council of Churches in India), and
Lesslie Newbigin to India in 1936 (becoming one of the first bishops of the new
Church of South India in 1947).
Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson, biblical scholars sometimes known as the "Westminster sisters" attended St Columba's and are commemorated by a plaque. ==References==