The Octagon Chapel, Liverpool, was a nonconformist church in Liverpool, England, opened in 1763. It was founded by local congregations, those of Benn's Garden and Kaye Street chapels. The aim was to use a non-sectarian liturgy; Thomas Bentley was a major figure in founding the chapel, and had a hand in the liturgy. Background The dissenting group in Liverpool in the middle of the eighteenth century was in numerical terms shrinking. Many from congregations had conformed to the Church of England. A plan for a set liturgy, as a method of reform of dissenting services, was proposed by some Lancashire ministers in 1750. Despite open opposition by John Brekell from 1758, who by then had been ministering at the Kaye Street Chapel for nearly 30 years, the compilation of a new liturgy went ahead. The Kaye Street Chapel (also Key Street) dated from 1707, and belonged to the Warrington presbyterian classis. The Benn's Garden Chapel in Red Cross Street, Liverpool, dated from 1727 and had been built for the Presbyterian minister Henry Winder. In 1763 its minister John Henderson became a conforming Anglican; at that point William Enfield became sole minister there to a congregation with many local merchants. While Brekell was a conservative Presbyterian, and Enfield's theology was Unitarian, the ministers of the two chapels from which the Octagon congregation had broken away then worked together on an alternative work, A New Collection of Psalms Proper for Christian Worship (1764). A listing of the non-Anglican places of worship in Liverpool in 1775 mentions, besides the two Presbyterian chapels and the Octagon: a Methodist chapel; two Baptist meeting-places; a Quaker meeting-house; a Catholic chapel and a synagogue, both small. The population was around 35,000. Design and history of the chapel As the name suggests, the building had eight sides, like the Octagon Chapel, Norwich (1756, Thomas Ivory). The chapel was to a design by Joseph Finney, and was built in Temple Court. Nicholas Clayton, of Unitarian views, accepted an invitation to become the first minister there; the appointment was joint with Hezekiah Kirkpatrick. The congregation were nicknamed the Octagonians. but the chapel's existence depended very much on Bentley, who eventually moved to London. The experimental liturgy did not gain the anticipated support, from those in the founding congregations who did not want to use the Book of Common Prayer. The chapel was sold in 1776, to a clergyman, Rev. Plumbe,