At the beginning of the 20th century, the land upon which St Cyprian’s Church was built, was part of a sparsely populated green field area on the edge of the City of Nottingham’s 1877 boundary. A few farm houses and cottages were scattered amongst the newer houses, built to accommodate the city’s population drift to the green suburbs. The site at the top of a hill overlooked the east and south of the city and beyond into the Trent valley. This area contrasted sharply with housing at the bottom of the hill, consisting of streets and courts of densely packed slum dwellings known as Sneinton Elements. In this area housing and sanitary conditions were very basic.
The Bishop of Southwell decided that the rapidly expanding population warranted more facilities so he invited the Rev Vincent Travers Macy to take charge of the designated church district and develop the site. In 1913 the first church building and the vicarage were completed. The small church, to accommodate a congregation of two hundred, was built of red Nottingham brick, possible produced at the brick kilns then only a few hundred yards away.
In 1927, St Cyprian’s was designated as a ‘Peel parish’ with the Rev Killer as its vicar. Increasing use of the 1913 building, led to renewed development planning. The new church was regarded as ‘modernistic’ ,in a spacious open-plan building, with a broad nave, side ambulatories and chairs rather than pews. It was estimated that the new design would cost about £8500. The new church was finally consecrated on 15th May 1935 by the Bishop of Southwell
Constance Penswick Smith came to Coddington, Nottinghamshire when her father the Reverend Charles Penswick Smith was appointed Vicar of All Saints. One day in 1913, Constance read an article in the Evening News, which outlined plans by Anna Jarvis from Philadelphia to introduce an American festival into Britain to celebrate "Mother’s Day", on the 2nd Sunday in May. Constance realised that despite having a similar sounding name to Mothering Sunday, it would not have any of the Christian values, which made Mothering Sunday so special. She began to devote her life to re-establishing the true Christian celebration of Mothering Sunday in a campaign, which was to last for 30 years. At first her movement was rejected by many established religious societies, but gradually the clergy did become interested, particularly Rev Killer of St Cyprians in Nottingham, who used the hymns that Constance had selected. When the new St Cyprians church was dedicated in 1936, a canister containing orders of service, and other material was placed beneath the altar.
Cache placed by kind permission of St Cyprian'd Church.
“If anybody would like to expand to this series please do, I would just ask that you could let Sadexploration know first at churchmicro@gmail.com so he can keep track of the Church numbers and names to avoid duplication.
There is also a Church Micro Stats & Information page found via the Bookmark list”