Burnt Hill, Berkshire

Zion

1864 Burnt Hill Zion Primitive Methodist chapel as it was in 1993. It seated 50.
Keith Guyler 1993

At the time of the 1851 religious census, the Primitive Methodists were holding Sunday services in a cottage at Burnt Hill, which was not used exclusively for religious worship. It attracted a congregation of forty. The census return for that Sunday was signed by a local preacher, George Merritt, who lived in Burnt Hill (or Burnthill) and was an agricultural labourer.

In 1864 the chapel in the photograph was built and named Zion. It contains a portrait of the well-known and widely influential Primitive Methodist minister, Isaac Nullis, born nearby at Ashampstead in 1828, who brought many people to faith in Christ and thereby much glory to God.

Zion is still in use as a Methodist chapel two Sundays a month.

Comments about this page

  • I was speaking recently (June 2015) with a man who worships at Zion. He recalls that it was full for Sunday services in the 1960s; in his father’s time, in the 1920s, “you couldn’t get a seat.” The society dropped to below seven members and was a made a class of a nearby larger town society. Sunday attendances at Zion currently average ten.

    By David Young (29/06/2015)
  • For an insight into the fellowship, work and worship at Zion in times past, turn to Jesse Herbert’s biography of Isaac Nullis (“The living Sacrifice: the life of Isaac Septimus Nullis” (two editions, 1870, 1888)).

    By David Young (16/08/2012)

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