ABSTRACT
As the trains from the north-east rumble across the Victorian viaduct into Leeds station they pass the parish church, built between 1838 and 1841, a prominent symbol of the self-assertion of the Church of England in a northern industrial town. It is recorded that on an ordinary early spring Sunday evening in 1851 the church was filled to capacity with 3,000 people, several hundred of whom were standing in the aisles. 1 The traveller who leaves the train at Leeds will emerge from the station into the bustle of City Square and will be confronted with further reminders of the role of religion in urban life. On the eastern side of the square is the conspicuous Mill Hill Unitarian Chapel, constructed a few years after the parish church, imitating its style and in conscious rivalry with it; to the west is a line of statues of local worthies, which includes W.F. Hook, the energetic vicar during whose incumbency the parish church was rebuilt.
