Ashton-under-Lyne Primitive Methodist Chapel

[This page was originally triggered by a remarkable picture of an unidentified Primitive Methodist chapel. Since then the  comments establish it is not the chapel in Ashton-under Lyne and the picture has been moved to its own page.]

The photographer of this amazing picture came from ‘Ashton, near Preston’, but where is the chapel?

There was a Primitive Methodist Chapel called Providence, in Katherine Street, Ashton-under-Lyne.  Can anyone help identify the chapel in the photo?

added 04/2020 CH

There is an account in the Primitive Methodist magazine of 1846 page 376 of the opening of Ashton under Line (sic) Primitive Methodist chapel. It opened on February 8th 1846.

The account is by J Clewer: is this the same J Clewer who preached at the opening of Stanley Lane End chapel in the Wakefield circuit  on April 14th 1839?

02/2021

Another piece in the jigsaw comes from the return from the Primitive Methodist chapel to the 1851 Census of Places of Public Religious worship. The return shows the chapel, located in Katherine Street, as opening in 1845. It held 630 people – a sizeable building – and on Census Sunday 205 attended in the afternoon and 253 in the evening.. There was also a thriving Sunday school with 172 attending in the morning and 181 in the afternoon.

The return was completed by John Jaques, the Steward, of Ryecroft Place.

Providence chapel still exists on Street View in 2020, at the junction with Bentinck Street. It is in commercial use.