Hessle Primitive Methodist chapel

The  Primitive Methodist magazine of August 1857 contains an account by William Garner of the opening of Hessle Primitive Methodist chapel on 21st June 1857.  Opening sermons were preached by W Harland, E Morton, G Wood, J Wood and W Garner.

The population of Hessle at the time was around 1,500 and the new chapel seated 224 (“around 300 in an emergency”).  It cost £400 of which £130 had been raised. Measuring 38′ x 28′ and 16.5′ from floor to ceiling, it included a large vestry.  It was “protected by strong iron gates and palisades.”  The architect was J Wright.

Hessle was first missioned in 1830 and for 27 years meetings were held in an upper room which “was low and ill-ventilated”.  It took them four years to get hold of some premises they had identified in a “very good situation” but which had “unusual difficulties connected with the title”.

The 1877 Primitive Methodist magazine contains a note recording  the “very necessary and convenient  enlargement of the Primitive Methodist chapel at Hessel (sic) in the Hull South station.

The site of the 1857 chapel was taken over in due course by the United Methodists (formerly the United Free Methodists) but has since been re-developed for housing and is the Orchard Drive Flats. The Hessle Local History Society sets out the wider picture of the Primitive Methodist society and later chapels here.

Reference

Primitive Methodist magazine August 1857 p.504

Primitive Methodist magazine 1877 page 569