Unitarianism has a long history in Trowbridge and plans are taking shape to mark the 300th anniversary of the Unitarian Conigre Congregation in the town.

Before the Act of Toleration in 1689, it was considered treacherous for Dissenters to worship collectively, so members met outside Trowbridge.

The Unitarian church in the area can be traced to Southwick in 1655.

This was a considerable development for the church, which opposed the Act of Conformity in 1662 and subsequently the Great Ejection – the act clearly said that any ministers who did not conform to the Book of Common Prayer must be ejected from the Church of England.

It was only when ministers John Lawes and John Davisson moved the congregation to the centre of Trowbridge in 1714 that detailed records were kept. They show that the local congregation was part of a larger Unitarian community of 30,000 members across the UK and can now be found in the Wiltshire Record Office.

A major development for the oldest non-conformist congregation of the town was the appointment of Samuel Martin as minister in 1827.

Martin was able to increase numbers of the congregation and, according to Trowbridge Unitarian records, by 1833 attendance was between 120 and 250 members. It was also during his ministry that a Sunday school was founded alongside a library used by as many as 300 Trowbridge pupils.

The school was previously a dissenting academy and was considered to be a virtually non-conformist university – non-conformists could not enter Oxford or Cambridge at the time.

Angela Harrington, of Holt, a member of the congregation for over 40 years, said: “Unitarianism is an open faith.

“We [the congregation] are very open and we like to serve the community in the best way we can.”

In more recent years, the congregation has seen a slow decline in membership.

There are now 25 members with worship taking place at a house in Seymour Road in Trowbridge.

The chapel was rebuilt during Martin’s ministry in 1857 with an ornate and gothic design but in the late 1970s it was found to have a poor infrastructure and was demolished in 1988.

Various original fittings are now in Trowbridge Museum.

The Trowbridge Unitarian Conigre Congregation will commemorate the move to the town with an anniversary service in December.