Heritage Now

HERITAGE NOW (01/2021) AUTUMN 2021   9 FEATURE built competitively so in some villages there was more than one large chapel built to accommodate huge congregations – the Methodist Church’s 1990 Statistical Returns show that Cornwall had far-and-away more chapels of over 500 seats than any other district. In terms of a focus on the crisis now facing Meth- odism, Cornwall might serve as a microcosm. Some chapels have long been demolished, others face uncertain futures such as the remarkable ear- ly-Victorian chapel buildings at Newlyn Trinity, which was given up years ago and is now being sold, and the exquisite chapel at Ponsanooth, its baroque frontage perched high on a hill and where today the small congregation meets elsewhere. Many have already been developed for residen- tial use, others have undergone long planning battles including the large Grade II* listed chapel at Carharrack (1816), near St Day, which currently faces potentially damaging development. Another chapel near The Lizard was being sold for domes- tic use, until a survey revealed that the frontage was built over old mine workings and could col- lapse at any time. Cornwall may be a microcosm, but the story is repeated up and down the country. The north- east, another former mining area, was arguably over-chapeled and has had to reduce its stock: Newbiggin, High House and Keenley have already been mentioned but a large town church, Bond- gate in Darlington (1812) is now closed and for sale. Elsewhere, in Wolverhampton, the substantial and splendid town-centre premises in Darlington Street (1901) has closed: negotiations are taking place but the future is not clear. Both are listed Grade II*. The Church’s ‘Methodist Heritage’ network, and Listed Buildings office (confusingly, for the LEFT: Newport Street, Clun. Wesleyan chapel opened in 1838, rebuilt in 1899, used for youth work until 1976 and now in residential use. Pictures with permission from Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History [British Methodist Buildings], Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, unless otherwise stated. RIGHT: Newbiggin Chapel, Newbiggin near Middleton-In-Teesdale graphically how many former chapels are now homes and garages, workshops and warehouses, or used by community groups. Many are recognis- ably former church buildings, while others now bear no resemblance. There can be little doubt that we are on the verge of a significant contraction in Methodism’s build- ings, accelerating a trend which has been under way for over 80 years. In the past five years the two chapels, both in County Durham, which were the oldest ‘in continuous Methodist use’ −New- biggin in Teesdale and High House in Weardale − have gone, although the latter may become part of the adjoining Weardale Museum. Incidental- ly, the term ‘in continuous Methodist use’ needs explanation. So the earliest Methodist chapel was the New Room, Bristol (from 1739), but that was owned by the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists for a century while the oldest is actually St John’s Northgate, Gloucester, a 1732 Anglican church which still incorporates its medieval tower. Further north, the isolated Keenley chapel in rural Northumberland, parts of which date from 1750, currently faces an uncertain future. While proba- bly the majority of chapels at risk are small rural causes, that is by no means the whole picture. Latterly St Paul’s, Shaw, Oldham, a large and im- portant neo-classical building by James Simpson, in a well populated area, has collapsed follow- ing decades of neglect while Redruth Methodist church in Cornwall, dating to 1826, has had to be given up as the rear was slipping down the railway embankment. West Cornwall had probably the heaviest concen- tration of chapels in the country, indeed the 1851 religious census noted that it was the only county where Methodists were the largest religious grouping. Moreover, rival sub-denominations