THE CORN EXCHANGE BAPTIST CHURCH

A short stocky young man of 32 walked down Holywell Hill St. Albans at about 6 o’clock in the evening of Saturday 3rd July 1880. From the tower of the scaffold-covered Abbey the notes of the old vesper song "Home Sweet Home" sweetly pealed over the town. It was just three years since St. Albans had received its fifth Charter. Lord Grimthorpe was fulfilling his life’s ambition by rebuilding the nave and the West front of the Abbey.

At the foot of the hill, opposite the pond, was "Ver House", the residence of Mr. William Hurlock, alderman and one-time mayor of the city, a London businessman. It was a beautiful house fronting up the hill with the river Ver flowing through the garden. Here he met Robert Pratt, a printer of Market Place, Charles Gentle, an iron-founder and metal worker of French Row and William Wilshere a carpenter. They were meeting to arrange the services which were to be held at the Corn Exchange the next day.