Opening Hours
The Church has a strong congregation and members keep the building open throughout the summer months in the afternoons for tourists to visit. It remains open on Sunday afternoons during the whole year. Tea, coffee, biscuits and cakes are on sale when the building is open on Sundays. A small shop and exhibition displays old prints from the history of the church and Saltaire. Postcards and guides and other items are available for sale
Directions and Free Parking
Sat nav users: set your Sat Nav to BD17 7EF. When it tells you you've reached your destination, keep going along Salts Mill Road following the brown signs - you'll pass a big red brick chimney on your left as you cross the canal and The Waterfront, an office building, on your right, then you'll see the mill at the end of the road. Proceed through the gates into the free Salts visitors car park on the right.
Paid Car Parking
Saltaire Road/Exhibition Road car park: BD18 3JN
(Up to 2 hours, £1 / over 5 hours, £3)
Victoria Road/Caroline Street car park: BD18 3LF
(Up to 2 hours, £1 / over 5 hours, £3)
United Rerformed Church, opposite Salts Mill: BD18 3LF.
£2 for 3 hours
£3 for the day
Tickets available fom the Tourist Information Centre, in Salts Mill.
Saltaire train station is a 5 minute walk away.
Buses 676 & 678 wil drop you off at the top of Victoria road with a 10 minute walk to the church.
Bus 679 will drop you off on Caroline street with a 5 minute walk to the church.
Saltaire United Reformed Church
Saltaire United Reformed Church is a unique example of Victorian Italianate architecture within the model industrial village of Saltaire. It boasts many architecturally and historically important features and has been described as a classic "Cathedral of Congregationalism The Church was built by Sir Titus Salt in 1859, to cater for the spiritual needs of his workers. The building is heavily Italianate: six Corinthian columns support the portico with its fretted tower and cupola. Salt employed two Italian craftsmen to work on the plaster ceiling, Corinthian columns and tinted glass panes.
HIGHLIGHTS
The entrance is up six steps under a portico supported by six un-fluted Corinthian columns and topped by a fretted tower with cupola. You will see a Greek key-patterned border below these columns. Notice the clock face (one of four), and the bell-openings with decorative iron grilles
Hollow Corinthian columns with beautiful Scagliola exteriors, an Italian technique
Two ornate chandeliers of ormolu and cut glass hang from the ceiling, of such great weight that additional roof trusses had to be inserted to support them. Originally lit by gas, they were made by Hausburg of Liverpool.
The organ within built by Peter Conacher and Co. Huddersfield, was installed in 1890, rebuilt at the end of the Second World War, and again in 1991 by Michael Fletcher, a local organ builder now the church organist.
Type Architectural decorated pipe display is Pipe Rack (1 facing left and 4 facing front) +
Architectural (11 semi circular + 9 + 11 semi circular) +
Pipe Rack (4 facing front and I facing right);
The ceiling
The marble bust in the vestibule depicts Sir Titus himself as a younger, slimmer version of the industrialist and philanthropist shown in modern dress by Francis Derwent Wood
At the base of the pedestal an alpaca, an angora goat and a fleece draped over a cornucopia of harvest riches. The notice next to the bust explains that it was presented to Salt by "the workpeople in his employment as a token of their respect and esteem" on 20 September 1856
Mausoleum built onto the church contains the remains of Sir Titus Salt himself