King's Road Meeting House

King's Road Meeting House, built when King's Road was still called Warley Lane in about 1755, was founded by Joseph Evans as a break-away congregation from the first meeting house on London Road. The first minister at the church was Joseph Barber. It stood on the south side of the still-extant churchyard, on roughly the site of 28 King's Road.

The building itself was brick-built, with a semetrical facade rising to a gable end. It contained an organ and a gallery (although these were probably later additions), and originally a house next door was the residence of the minister. By the 1780s the congregation had dwindled under the leadership of the Roger Williams, and the meeting house may have been closed down for some time. In 1799 there was a revival of the congregation, starting off with only five members, the new congration was lead by David Smith and the sunday school was looked after by Thomas Swallow.

A year after the church re-opened, the congragation had doubled to ten people, it was 17 in 1801, and twenty-two in 1802. David Smith remained minister for until 1846, when he retired and John Sydney Hall was elected the new minister - he was still in college at this time and so was not ordained until the following year. By early 1847 a new church was under construction on New Road, and this was opened on 7th October 1847. Shortly before that, on 23rd September 1847, the contents and materials of the King's Road meeting house were auctioned off "from roof to foundaton" and the building subsequently demolished.