Note 26 — MEMOIR OF THE REV. RICHARD GILPIN, M.D.

‘A Sermon preached at the Funeral of Mr John Noble of Penruddock, near Penrith, in Cumberland, March 14, 1707-8. By Samuel Audland. To which is added a Postscript concerning the Deceased, by another hand.’ London (reprinted) 1818, pp. 37, 38. The little ‘Chapel’ wherein this Sermon was preached still remains, and has now as its minister the Rev. David Y. Storrar, who occupies it as a mission-charge of the United Presbyterian Church (of Scotland). This congregation originated, it is believed, from those who could not remain in the Parish Church of Greystoke after Gilpin left and Moreland returned; and thus is of the oldest of the Presbyterian congregations in England. See above tractate, whence we learn that on Dr Gilpin’s ‘motion,’ the Nonconformists of Greystoke ‘called’ another to fill his place for them. Then the Narrative continues: ‘Mr Anthony Sleigh, a native of the same parish, and bred in the College of Durham, was obtained to become their minister, and so continued about forty years, though he had only slender [pecuniary] encouragements there. Their meeting was held mostly in the house of John Noble, and sometimes under covert of the night, as Christ’s disciples sometimes did,’ (page 44.)