The photographer of this amazing picture came from Prospect Place, Ashton, Preston. Prospect Place is in Ashton on Ribble which is near Preston, but doesn’t tell us where the chapel was.
I could not find a Primitive Methodist chapel on historic Ordnance Survey maps of Ashton on Ribble. So where was this chapel?
At first we wondered whether it was at Ashton under Lyne which is nearer to Manchester, but it’s not the chapel in Katherine Street. See the comments on this page for that story.
Many thanks to Sue Latimer for some brilliant detective work to track it down as Fylde Road Primitive Methodist Chapel, Preston – and you can read some of that chapel’s story here.
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George Devey was operating from Prospect Place in Ashton-on-Ribble in the late 19th century, and this photograph looks much earlier. I suspect he made a copy for someone, perhaps from a glass slide.
I found this article just a few days ago and was about to start looking for early Primitive Methodist chapels in the wider Preston area, when – courtesy of Peter Smith and his Preston History website – the apparent answer popped up : https://prestonhistory.com/2022/12/15/on-this-day-15-december-1850/.
The photograph is almost certainly the Fylde Road Primitive Methodist Chapel, and I imagine that Devey was asked to copy it, either when the new chapel was built in front of it in 1894 or following the fire that destroyed it in 1900. The chapel was next to Moss Cottage, now The Guild pub on Fylde Road, and this image I’ve just found on Preston Digital Archive shows that building next to the replacement chapel : https://www.flickr.com/photos/rpsmithbarney/5422172337/ . That appears to clinch it!
Here for completeness is the 1892 OS Town Plan from NLS Maps : https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18.4&lat=53.76432&lon=-2.71084&layers=117746211&b=1
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