Prees Green Primitive Methodist Chapels

The first PM chapel in Prees Green was built in 1843.

This gravestone has a mystery to it

The earlier chapel was replaced by the present brick built one in 1933. Is this too late to be called a Primitive Methodist Chapel?

The graveyard surrounding the chapel is interesting. It has an 1833 burial. The inscription on it reads ‘In Loving  Memory of Mary Alice beloved wife of Herbert Bowden of Wytheford Hall Shawbury who died Oct.3rd 1833 aged 48 years, also, In Loving Memory of Mary Lucy the dearly beloved daughter of the above who died suddenly in this chapel during service on Oct.5th 1941 aged 20 years’.

There is something very wrong with this inscription. Dates? Relationship of the two people buried here? Was this graveyard here before the chapel was built bearing in mind that the earlier chapel was built on a different site?

Photos taken July 2013

OS Map Ref:126:SJ562317

Information about these chapels can be viewed by following the link to Shropshire’s Nonconformist Chapels here for the first chapel and here for the 1933 chapel.

Comments about this page

  • The Bowden family continued to live at Wytheford Hall until very recently. I grew up a couple of miles away. The most recent occupant was the grandson of Herbert and Mary Alice Bowden, and Mary Lucy was his aunt.
    Mary Alice actually died in 1933, not 1833 and, if you zoom in on the photograph, it is clearly a 9, not an 8, although it is not a very good 9.

    By Mike Austin (21/03/2023)
  • I think that the mystery of the date of the building of the first chapel may have been solved. The 1851 Religious Census states that it was erected in 1844. But other information has now come to light that contradicts that & would fit it very nicely with the burial date on your website. According to the Diocese of Lichfield’s details of the registrations of nonconformist places of worship which were sent to the General Register Office in 1852 (which are now in the National Archives, class RG 31) a chapel at Prees Green was certified by William Higginson (a known Primitive Methodist) on the 27th September 1832 as a place of nonconformist worship. So, I think we can safely say that it was built & opened in 1832.

    By Janice Cox (03/05/2021)

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