Coxwell Street to the north of Market Square was the original home of the Baptist Church that was founded in 1651, making it one of the oldest Baptist churches in England; the church moved in January 2017 to a new building on Chesterton Lane. The town's Salvation Army hall in Thomas Street occupies the former Temperance Hall built by the Quaker Christopher Bowly in 1846, and is the oldest such hall in the West of England. The Salvation Army first met in Cirencester in 1881.