Westfield Methodist church on Wells Road, Norton-Radstock is a former Primitive Methodist chapel and is still open for worship. When browsing through the 1889 Primitive Methodist magazine (as you do) I came across a report of the opening of a Bath Road chapel in the Midsomer Norton station, , and I’m wondering whether it was Westfield.
The magazine tells us that the foundation stones for Bath Road Primitive Methodist chapel in the Midsomer Norton circuit were laid on July 1st 1889. It was only fifteen years previously that the previous chapel was erected and in that time it had become too small.
It’s not easy to track down Bath Road chapel. There is nowhere in Midsomer Norton itself or the area immediately around know as Bath Road. Elsewhere on this site, Jeff Parsons tells us that there were at least eight Primitive Methodist chapels in the North Somerset coalfield, including four in and around Midsomer Norton, at:-
- Midsomer Norton Stones Cross (now Salvation Army)
- Welton (now converted to housing)
- Midsomer Norton Redfield Road (demolished 1996 now housing)
- Westfield – still open
Of these, Westfield on Wells Road seems the most likely to be Bath Road. If is actually on the Fosse Way which goes to Bath if you go north rather than south to Wells. The 1886 Ordnance Survey map shows the chapel already in existence and by the 1904 map it has a larger footprint, which fits with our magazine information. In 1886 the chapel stands well away from any habitation; over time the communities build around it.
Reference
Primitive Methodist magazine 1889 September page 571
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The Bath Road Primitive chapel was most likely to be Peasedown St John. The deeds to this chapel refer to it as the Bath Road Primitive Methodist Church. The building was registered for the solemnization of marriages in 1891.
Thanks for the additional information Jeff
The earliest record of a Methodist Society at Westfield was 18th March 1851. In November 1860 a cottage occupied by a Mr George Hobbs was used as a meeting place for members of the Primitive Methodist Denomination and registered for “Worship and Conduct of Marriages”.
Westfield Chapel was built in 1869 on land owned by the Countess Waldegrave at a cost of £500 and enlarged in 1896 with the laying of the foundation stone and opened in 1898. The cost of the new church was stated to be £800 and the stone for the building was obtained locally, quarried by miner members of the congregation and brought to the site by a member with his horse and cart! With the opening of the new church the old one was then used for Sunday School and subsequently the Church Hall.
Notes from Westfield Centenary booklet 1998.
I agree that the Bath Road Chapel was in Peasedown and is still open as a Methodist Church.
The chapel on Bath Road in Peasedown St. John is another possibility.
https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/370354/157483/12/100545
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