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The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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METHODIST CHAPELS
John Wesley (1703-1791) founded the Wesleyan Methodist Society in 1738. One of his followers, George Whitefield (1714-1770) soon began preaching throughout the land but his views were to differ from those of John Wesley. Whitefield's supporters built him a Tabernacle in London in which to preach his Calvinist views. Wesley still considered himself a member of the Church of England and never planned the Methodist Church as a separatist movement, intending that worshippers should go to Church in the morning and Chapel on a Sunday evening. Calvinistic Methodism was the first to be established in Plymouth. A Mr Andrew Kinsman of Tavistock had been converted after reading one of Whitefield's sermons. He moved to Plymouth, where he set up business as a grocer, and founded the Tabernacle at Breton Side in the garden at the rear of his house. Whitefield visited the Tabernacle in about 1744 when he passed through Plymouth on his way to America. [1] Wesleyan Methodism was established in Plymouth in 1745, a year before John Wesley paid his first visit to the Town. Members met in private houses and there was a great deal of open-air preaching, some of which brought about open hostility. There were occasional meetings under the Great Tree in Breton Side, in the Old Mitre Inn, in Southside Street; and in the old Tabernacle. [1] John Wesley first visited Plymouth Dock on September 3rd 1746. He walked there from Plymouth with Mr Herbert Jenkins, a local preacher, who then preached to a congregation that by all accounts was not much impressed and walked away almost as soon as he started. However, very early the next morning Wesley himself preached to a more receptive congregation that included many supporters from Plymouth itself. It is not known where this event took place. [2] At a Wesleyan conference on November 16th 1749 country was divided into twenty "circuits", of which Cornwall and Plymouth was number 8. It would be interesting to know why Plymouth was not included in the Devon circuit. In 1750 Kinsman became a regular minister locally and the following year moved to Plymouth Dock, where he found a private house in Queen Street in which he preached to 16 followers. Then in 1752 he built a meeting-house in Granby Street on the site later occupied by the Classical and Mathematical School and after that by the Granby Cellars. This became known as the Higher Room while the older premises became the Lower Room. As the congregation expanded so the Higher Room was enlarged. The First Chapels The foundation stone of the first Wesleyan chapel in the Three Towns was laid in 1779. The Lower Street Methodist Chapel was erected thanks to the efforts of Mr Redstone RN, carpenter of Turnchapel, and Mr Nehemiah Jane, a quarterman from the Royal Dockyard. John Wesley himself preached here on two days in August 1780. [2] In 1785/86 the Ker Street Wesleyan Chapel became the first Methodist place of worship in Plymouth Dock. [2] The Wesley Methodist Chapel, in Plymouth, opened in 1792; the Morice Street Methodist Chapel, at Plymouth Dock and the Gloucester Street Methodist Chapel, at Morice Town, opened in 1807 and 1811 respectively. In East Stonehouse the Edgcumbe Street Wesleyan Chapel was opened in 1813. A congregation was formed in 1789 at Underwood, in the parish of Plympton Saint Mary, but did not progress to a chapel of its own. 19th Century Expansion Three out-lying congregations achieved their own chapels in the next couple of years: Tamerton Foliot in 1814; Ridgeway in 1815 and Turnchapel in 1817. After Wesley's death in 1791 the movement began to split up into Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists and United Free Methodists and in 1815 the Bible Christians were founded. Attendances at the Wesley Chapel increased so much that a new building was called for and in 1817 the Ebenezer Methodist Chapel was opened in Saltash Street and the Wesley Chapel was closed. Although there had been meetings going on in the village for about two decades, it was not until 1817 that what was then Knackersknowle Wesleyan Chapel, later the Crownhill Methodist Chapel, was opened. The first Oreston Methodist Chapel was opened in 1818 followed by Stoke Methodist Chapel in 1820. A small congregation was meeting at what was then known as Jump, now Roborough, to the north of Plymouth in 1830 but it did not get its own Chapel for over a century. A small Salem Street Methodist Chapel was opened in 1831. There were several splits from the local Methodist congregations in Dock. The first, under the Reverend J Wilkinson, resulted in the erection of a small Calvinist chapel in South Street. Likewise, the old Baptist Chapel in Morice Square had been built for a Mr Moore who had broken away from the Wesleyan side of the Church. Just prior to 1823 the final break from the Princes Street Chapel occurred and resulted in the construction of the Mount Zion Calvinist Chapel in Ker Street After several decades in the hands of other religious bodies, the Wesley Methodist Chapel was re-opened as a Methodist place of worship in 1847 while in Devonport the Herbert Street Methodist Chapel was opened in 1850. The United Methodist Free Church was formed in 1857 and used the Old Tabernacle in Plymouth and the Tabernacle in Gloucester Street, Devonport, for their worship. In 1862 they acquired the old Plymouth Brethren chapel in Ebrington Street, which they re-named Hope Chapel. By this time the new Devonport suburb of Ford was firmly established and growing quickly. It's first Ford Methodist Chapel was erected in 1864 but was soon replaced by two even larger ones as the population expanded. Also in Devonport, in 1864the Primitive Methodists turned a former Unitarian Chapel into the Granby Street Methodist Chapel and 1866 the United Methodist Free Church took over the old Salem Chapel in Albert Road, which then became the Albert Road Methodist Chapel. In Plymouth the large King Street Methodist Chapel was opened in 1866 and at Plympton the Colebrook Methodist Chapel was built. The Primitive Methodists opened the Ebrington Street Methodist Chapel in 1868. Mutley Methodist Chapel on Mutley Plain was opened in 1869, followed in fairly quick succession by Belmont Methodist Chapel (1876), Millbridge Methodist Chapel (1877) and in 1879 by the Ham Street Methodist Chapel, which was also known as the New Wesley Methodist Chapel. After a break of over a decade, the next Methodist place of worship to be opened was the Saint Budeaux Methodist Chapel in 1893. This was followed in 1898 by the Saint Levan Methodist Chapel in Stuart Road, Devonport, and in 1900 by the Compton Methodist Chapel at Compton Gifford. After a few years in a temporary building, the Keyham Methodist Chapel, also known as the Victoria Memorial Chapel, was opened at Keyham in 1901. 20th Century Developments During the first decade of the 20th century a further nine new Methodist Chapels were opened: at Honicknowle (1902); Mount Gould (1904); Peverell Park (1905); Laira (1906); Pennycross (1907); Camel's Head (1907); Cobourg Street (1908) and Pomphlett (1909). The Primitive Methodists opened the College Road Methodist Chapel in 1910. A comprehensive scheme involving the purchase and conversion of the Hope Baptist Church in Fore Street, Devonport, into the Devonport Methodist Central Hall, was launched in December 1924. The scheme also involved sale of Ker Street and Morice Street Methodist Chapels. Only one Methodist place of worship was opened between 1909 and the outbreak of the Second World War: North Prospect Methodist Chapel, in 1928. On September 20th 1932 the four Methodist groups (Wesleyan (1784), Primitive Methodists (1811), United Methodist Free Church (1857), and the United Methodists (1907)) merged again to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain and Ireland, following a conference in the Albert Hall in London. During the night of Sunday September 12th 1937 the New Wesley Chapel was destroyed by fire and its congregation moved to the Ebenezer, albeit in the firm belief that their own Chapel would be quickly rebuilt. As it turned out, the Reverend W E Chivers thought differently and persuaded everybody that it would be better to create a new Mission Church right in the centre of Plymouth, at the Ebenezer Chapel. There was a lot of debate on the subject but eventually this idea was accepted and on Sunday April 16th 1939 the Ebenezer closed its doors in preparation for conversion into the Plymouth Methodist Central Hall, in which guise it re-opened in 1940. During the reconstruction after the Second World War the only new chapels that were built were to serve the new housing estates. Ernesettle Methodist Chapel opened in 1955; Woodford in 1959; Roborough in 1960 and Whitleigh in 1961. Sources:
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