One day in 1947 a Baptist minister in Hull was cycling round the Priory Road area in the West of the city. He was impressed by the need to have a Free Church in the district. And he cared enough to put his concern into action.

As a result of this concern, a meeting was arranged of the ministers and secretaries of the Cottingham Road, Boulevard, East Park, and Courtney Street Baptist Churches in Hull to discuss the possibilities of starting work in the area.

For various reasons, all the churches except Cottingham Road had to withdraw from the scheme. However, the Rev. T. J. Johnson’s dream started to come true on June 1st 1947, when a Sunday School was started in what was then the Priory Road Junior School. The district had been circulated about it beforehand, and as a result, 45 children turned up that day.

In 1956 the church received permission from Hull Corporation to erect a pre-fabricated building on a site in Coronation Road, rented under a 10-year lease from the Corporation. The building cost £6000 and this was opened on 15th September 1956.

The years leading to that weekend had been days of meetings in houses, with prayer meetings and women’s meetings also being held in people’s houses.

In 1964 the church, which by then had a dozen members, became independent, and in September 1965 Rev John Ireland came from Spurgeons’ College as its first full-time pastor on a grant from the Baptist Union.

When the lease expired in 1966, the Corporation refused to formally renew it and for a while, the church continued occupation of the site without the security of a lease. Eventually,  the local authority gave the church formal notice, effective from May 1972, to quit the Coronation Road site which the Corporation required for a new road and offered a new site for sale in Hotham Road South about 400 metres away from the original site.

In order to release money for regular giving towards the erection of a new building, in September 1971, John Ireland, whilst maintaining pastoral care of the church on a part-time basis, temporarily left full-time ministry firstly to train as a teacher and then in September 1973 to take up a teaching position in the local Junior High School.

The design for the new church was based on a layout drawing and picture prepared by the then Church Secretary, Geoff Smith. Geoff maintained that the Lord inspired the design at a time when people in the church were discouraged about continuing the work.

It had been the intention of the church to buy another pre-fabricated building. However, at that time builders were short of work and, following a discussion between Geoff and a builder that he knew, a brick building was constructed.

Volunteers from the 32 church members and others (including John’s father) helped on the project in order to save costs and many (including two elderly ladies) kept guard over materials delivered to the site.

Because finances were short, the intention had been to erect the church first and to build the hall as a second stage. However, the builder started erecting the hall first and so the work continued and the finance for the overall scheme required was found.

The present purpose-built church and hall was opened on 1st May 1976 and at the same time, John Ireland resumed his full-time ministry.

In 1988 John moved to Melbourne Baptist Church near Cambridge and in 1989 was replaced as minister of the church by Rev Stuart Potter who remained in that post until he moved to Reddich Baptist Church in 1996.

In September 2000, Rev Michael Hawden was appointed as part-time minister of the church whilst also acting as a part-time hospital chaplain and in August 2004 he had to leave the post when he was offered a full-time position as a hospital chaplain. 

Together with much of the local area, the church was badly damaged during the floods in Hull on 25th June 2007. Church members felt that they wanted to reach out to the community and after mopping up the church buildings the doors were opened to the local people. Nearly 250 families were able to be helped in the months which followed. Click here for an article that Doreen wrote about the events.

Following completion of the rectification work and some additional work, the church held a celebration and rededication service on 27th September 2008.

For many years the church has been supporting the Torch Trust for the Blind and their work in Malawi. Recently we were visited by Janet Stafford from torch Trust and combined her visit with a Priory has Talent evening – much fun was had by everyone.

In September 2007, the leaders felt that God was calling the church to continue developing its existing links with the community in order to not only serve the community but also to make the love of God known to its people. They also felt that God was saying that there would be someone appointed to be a focus for this role and that the church should pray for this whilst, in addition, praying for a harvest from the community of people who did not as yet know and love the Lord Jesus. Whilst everyone said that they would love this to happen, nobody could see how the necessary funding could be obtained to appoint a full-time worker.

However, God knew what He was doing and discussions which had been taking place between Priory, the other Baptist churches in Hull and the Yorkshire Baptist Association with support from the Baptist Home Mission Fund were finalised in November 2008 and a search began to find the person of God’s choosing to be appointed as the Missioner for Hull. With individual donations, a grant from a Christian Trust, the support of the three Hull Baptist Churches and a grant from the Baptist Home Mission Fund, the vision was fulfilled.

In November 2010 Lars and Lynn Pettersen moved to Hull and Lars took up his appointment as the new Missioner for the Hull Baptist Churches Partnership based at Priory focussing on community, mission and evangelism.

Lars also worked closely in supporting Boulevard and Cottingham Road Baptist Churches in their outreach and evangelism. However, as the appointment was only for a fixed term of three years, in November 2013 Lars and Lynn moved on to pastor a church in Crewe.

On 8 March 2015, Doreen Gothard, who is carrying out Lay Pastor training with the Baptist Union was appointed to be Lay Pastor (in training) of the church and later become the church Minister after completing training.