Description: St Mary's church is not geographically, but remains spiritually the very heart of the ancient city of Nottingham. The reason for its present situation, somewhat off the beaten track, is that in the early middle ages there were two boroughs - the original Saxon borough, around St. Mary's, and the Norman-French borough, centred on the castle. Eventually the centre of the city became the Old Market Square, situated between the two. The old parish church, sitting on its dominating hill, as it can be seen in artists' 'Prospects' of the city in eighteenth century prints, was eventually hidden among the tall commercial buildings of the 'Lace Market'. Although it is no longer on a fashionable main road, so that visitors and passers-by cannot fail to notice its beauty, it is a splendid building, one of the most glorious edifices in the midlands. There has been a church on the site since Saxon times. Probably the first St. Mary's here was erected by the middle of the tenth century. Paulinus baptised men into the Christian faith in the River Trent in 627, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that some of those early Christians lived in Nottingham and that these men would have built a church in which they could worship. In the year 930, in what had been the Danish borough of Nottingham, a council was held, attended by an archbishop and sixteen bishops. Plainly the town was sufficiently important at that time for such a meeting to have been held; equally plainly these bishops must have worshipped in the parish church. After the Norman conquest, in 1066, settlement began around the new castle. Certainly Domesday Book, in 1086, stated that there was a church, with a priest named Aitard, who received a stipend of five pounds a year. There can have been little money available for the conquered Saxons to improve or to modernise the old Saxon church, which probably survived, unaltered, until 1140. In that year Nottingham was pillaged and set on fire by a raiding army commanded by the Earl of Gloucester, the half brother of Maud, who contested King Stephen's right to the throne. If the church survived this devastation, which is unlikely, it was certainly destroyed in 1171, when the town was sacked and burned again, this time by rebels fighting against Henry II. Plainly it was necessary to rebuild the parish church. Work was begun in the new style which is now called Early English. However, by this time, the responsibility was not entirely in the hands of the townsmen. William Peveril, the first governor of Nottingham Castle, had established a reformed Benedictine, or Cluniac monastery nearby, at Lenton, and had given the monks endowments which included the 'temporalities' of St. Mary's (c.1102-8). In fact, he had given them the incomes of the churches of St. Peter and St. Nicholas as well, but as these were small, the Cluniacs left their rectors in possession. The old parish church was more prosperous, however, and so the tithes were taken over and a substitute, or vicar, was appointed, with a fixed annual stipend. Probably three quarters of the church's income was diverted for the benefit of the monks. How the new church was paid for, or by whom, is unknown. Evidence exists as to its style. Built into a factory wall in Broadway is the stone frame of a two-light church window. There is no doubt that it is from the old church. Under the tower piers restored in the mid-nineteenth century are buried Norman capitals; and under the north aisle floor are the foundations and stump of a twelfth or thireteenth century pier. The end of the thirteenth century was a period of great activity in church building in the country, and a great advance in the civic life in Nottingham was marked by the grant of a Mayor and a further charter in 1283. It can be deduced that the church was considerably shorter than it is today. Its west end was probably near the existing south porch. There may have been improvements in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. If there were, nothing is known about them. (information from www.stmarysnottingham.org) High Pavement Unitarian Chapel dates from 1876. The congregation emerged from the Presbyterian system prevalent in the Commonwealth period. By 24th Aug 1662, under the Act of Uniformity, the three Nottingham ministers Whitlock, Barrett and Reynolds had been deprived of their livings and left town within weeks. They returned openly in 1687 and the first chapel was erected soon afterwards on High Pavement. By 1735 a liberal direction had been established and in 1802 the Unitarian standpoint was confirmed. In 1758 a new junior minister was appointed as an assistant. This resulted in a schism. The senior minister withdrew his supporters and opened a chapel in nearby Halifax Place. It was 1775 before the two congregations recombined. The original chapel was considerably rebuilt in 1805 and a neo-gothic chapel, which is now the 'Pitcher and Piano' restaurant, was erected in 1876 and the relocation to a former lace warehouse in Plumptre Street came about in 1982. This building was recently awarded Grade II listed status.