The Heywood Chapel, Northowram

The Chapel was founded by Oliver Heywood, a celebrated Nonconformist minister who lived in Northowram (a village high on the hills above Halifax) but preached in Lancashire, Cheshire, Nottinghamshire and throughout Yorkshire. It is one of the oldest Nonconformist churches (non-Anglican worship was illegal under the 1662 Act of Uniformity, and 2,000 priests left or were evicted from churches for refusing to accept uniformity. Amongst them was Heywood who kept extensive diaries). Non-Anglican worship remained illegal until the 1689 Toleration Act, by which time Heywood was preaching in the newly-founded Chapel. His pulpit remains a treasured possession. The cost of ongoing essential work has exhausted the Chapel’s Property Fund.