Nottingham

St Luke (Carlton Road)

Nottingham Archdeaconry

Nottingham South Deanery

Introduction

St Luke’s was one of several new parishes created in Nottingham in the mid-nineteenth century to relieve pressure on St Mary’s. It was created in 1861. St Luke’s was designed to serve the expanding town in an area predominantly occupied by textile workers in the central area of Nottingham around St Mary’s Church in the Lace Market.

Despite being an area of new housing, when an application for a grant towards building the new church was submitted to the Incorporated Church Building Society it was rejected by the ICBS, and the full cost of £3600 was raised by public subscription before the church was completed. The church was opened in 1863.

By 1900 the population of the area was starting to fall due to changes in the hosiery industry and housing standards, which led to partial demolition and remodelling of the older back-to-back accommodation

The fifth and last incumbent arrived in the parish in 1912 and, despite innovations such as his introduction of a long-range magic lantern to project the words and images onto a large screen, the numbers attending the church continued to decline. As early as 1921 St Luke’s was under threat of redundancy in the form of unification with the newer church of St Philip’s, opened in 1879 to serve the southern part of St Luke’s parish. The threat became reality with the vicar moving on in 1924, and St Luke’s was demolished in 1925.

It was replaced on the same site by the Nottingham City Mission.

Particular thanks to Doug Fletcher for research on this entry