Frettenham Primitive Methodist Chapel, Norfolk

A small Primitive Methodist society met at Frettenham from 1837 and three years later, it was agreed to accept the offer of Zephaniah Chapman, the schoolmaster, to use his schoolroom for preaching.

The circuit was pleased to borrow £10 from Jeremiah Fryer, a joiner who lived in the village, in order to pay for furniture for the travelling preacher’s house in Norwich in 1841 and when Jeremiah Fryer built a chapel in the village in 1845, the Quarterly meeting wrote to him asking if his chapel might be hired for the society.

By 1851, congregations averaged over fifty, but their disorganisation produced a stern message from the Quarterly meeting in September 1857 ‘that unless they met in class and aid the cause, the labours will be discontinued ’ and no more preacherswould be sent to Frettenham. 1    A year later, the meeting decided that the society should be removed from the plan ‘as the rent of the Chapel cannot be raised and no money having been sent to the Quarterly meeting for three quarters of a year.’ 2  

A Wesleyan chapel was later established in the village.  It closed in 1952.

End notes

1.  N.R.O., FC 27/56, Norwich P.M. minute book, 1855-67

2.  Ibid.