Roby Mill Primitive Methodist Chapel, Up Holland Lancashire
There are two chapels here. Little is known about either.
The first chapel was built in 1860. The plaque reads ‘Prepare to meet thy God’. In 2015 this chapel is a house.
On the opposite side of the road stands a brick built chapel more recently used. Date of erection not known. Is it also a Primitive chapel? In 2015 there is little indication that it is still open for worship but Roby Mill Pre-School Playgroup are using the building.
Photos taken June 2015
OS Map Ref:108:SD518071
added information CH Feb 2018
Ambrose Kirkland tells us in the Primitive Methodist magazine that the 1860 chapel was opened from July 22nd 1860. He describes it as stone built with a rock faced front; it measured 31.5′ x 24′, seated 150, cost £160 of which £100 had been raised and was on land with a 999 year lease at £3 per year.
Speakers at the opening included R. B.Howcroft, of Wigan, Thomas Jobling (Manchester) and the writer, Ambrose Kirkland of Chorley.
Reference
Primitive Methodist magazine October 1860 page 618-619
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An early picture of it has just been posted here: https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=5&id=34558&gallery=Roby+Mill&page=1
The building with the car park, opposite the chapel, was the Sunday school attached to the chapel.
It became the chapel for the village when the original chapel was sold and turned into a house in 1995
It appears that there was an earlier chapel to the two pictured here. I’ve added a transcript of the Return to the 1851 Census of Public Religious Worship. Thomas Abbott, the steward who completed the Return, dates the earlier chapel from 1847. It accommodated 100 people and on Census Sunday the afternoon attendance was 37 worshippers with 39 children in the Sunday school.
We now know a little more from an account of the opening of the 1860 chapel in the Primitive Methodist magazine
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