Unitarian Chapel on Renshaw St, Liverpool
March 18th, 1854—
On Saturday I went with Mr. Bright to the Dingle, a pleasant domain on the banks of the Mersey almost opposite to Rock Ferry. Walking home, we looked into Mr. Thorn's Unitarian Chapel, Mr. Bright's family's place of worship. There is a little graveyard connected with the chapel, a most uninviting and unpicturesque square of ground, perhaps thirty or forty yards across, in the midst of back fronts of city buildings.
About half the space was occupied by flat tombstones, level with the ground, the remainder being yet vacant. Nevertheless, there were perhaps more names of men generally known to the world on these few tombstones than in any other churchyard in Liverpool,—Roscoe, Blanco White, and the Rev. William Enfield, whose name has a classical sound in my ears, because, when a little boy, I used to read his "Speaker" at school.
In the vestry of the chapel there were many books, chiefly old theological works, in ancient print and binding, much mildewed and injured by the damp. The body of the chapel is neat, but plain, and, being not very large, has a kind of social and family aspect, as if the clergyman and his people must needs have intimate relations among themselves. The Unitarian sect in Liverpool have, as a body, great wealth and respectability.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
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