Welcome to the History Archive of Altrincham United Reformed Church.

Altrincham United Reformed Church has two places of worship, Trinity Hale, and Woodlands Timperley. They carry the records and traditions of five former churches that were active during the 20th Century until the present. They are:

Hale Congregational Church inc Mobberley chapel (now Trinity Hale)
Trinity Bowdon Presbyterian Church inc Trinity Mission
(both sold for development).
Broadheath Congregational Church
(re-located in 1974, becoming Woodlands Timperley)

This project originated in 2014 when it was decided to commemorate the centenary of World War 1, by first planting poppies in the church grounds of both places of worship. This coincided with a major refurbishment of the church building at Hale, resulting in services being held for a few months in the church hall. This hall, however, had been the original chapel when the church was founded, and we were even using the original communion table. This inspired me (Jim McKnight) to give an address one Sunday concerning poppies, the church history, and leading up to the use of the church as a hospital in WW1.

Subsquently, when the new church was re-opened, it was realised that it was ideal for exhibition purposes. Revd Brian Jolly suggested that we hold a WW1 exhibition with an expanded history of Trinity, Hale, and inviting members to give material from their family histories. The exhibition was organised by Phil Reeves, and Rebecca Leggat with historical material and artifacts provided by Jeremy Cocker and myself (Jim McKight). It was open for the week of Remembrance Day 2014.

Jeremy Cocker took on the arduous task of researching the stories of those who had died from our congregations. This resulted in a Roll of Honour for each of the three main churches who sent men abroad. These give unique insights to those people who worshipped in Altrincham, and then gave their lives for their country.

The new friendship area at Trinity Hale.

Subsequently, a similar exhibition was mounted for WW2 in 2015, the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, introducing our members experiences of the Blitz, and the memorial archive expandned to include those who died during the conflict. We discovered that there were many family members who had distinguished war records and have since died, and these too have been added to the record.

A revised exhibition marked the centeniary of the end of WW1 in 2018.

The section dealing with the use of the Hale church as the first WW1 hospital remains in place, to act as a reminder during the sale and modification of the old part of the premises.