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The current OS aerial view shows nothing on the site now, but an exploration would be interesting.
I’ve added a copy of the Return from Castleside Primitive Methodist chapel in the 1851 Census of Places of Public Religious Worship, transcribed by David Tonks 2020
I’ve added a copy of the Return from Murton Primitive Methodist chapel in the 1851 Census of Places of Public Religious Worship, transcribed by David Tonks 2020
I’ve added a copy of the Return from Frosterley Primitive Methodist chapel in the 1851 Census of Places of Public Religious Worship, transcribed by David Tonks 2020
I’ve added a copy of the Return from Stanhope Primitive Methodist chapel in the 1851 Census of Places of Public Religious Worship, transcribed by David Tonks 2020. Numbers were low on Census day because it rained
I’ve added a copy of the Return from Westgate Primitive Methodist chapel in the 1851 Census of Places of Public Religious Worship, transcribed by David Tonks 2020
I’ve added a transcript of the Return from Wearhead Primitive Methodist chapel in the 1851 Census of Places of Public Religious Worship, transcribed by David Tonks
I think I have found where the Chapel is. I live not far away but I haven’t checked it out at the moment.
Fryup Primitive Methodist Chapel is named on the 1893 OS Map as Ebenezer Chapel (Primitive Methodist). It is near Beck Side Farm. On the 1913 OS Map the building is still there but it is unnamed. Ref: NZ 737 060
J Wilson of Fryup described how Ranters were mocked from other pulpits for addressing the deity in terms of familiarity, offering redemption in the terms that might be used to sell a blanket at a fair. There was talk of “the love of God as sweet as gin and treacle”. A man at Fryup love feast was reported to have said that when his sins were pardoned, his heart turned over in his belly. Ref: They Kept Faith – John Rushton Beck Isle Museum Pickering Primitive Methodist magazine 1866 page 113-114
Thanks for the detail Pat – it adds colour to the outline.
It’s like piecing together a jigsaw – thanks for adding this piece Pat. One word of warning – just because a place is the head of a circuit doesn’t mean it is large; Primitive Methodists often based a circuit in the place where mission first took root and some of them were very small, such as Pillawell (Pillowell), Wrockwardine Wood, and Brinkworth
I should have added to my previous comment These notes were taken from They Kept Faith by John Rushton, Beck Isle Museum publication
John Rushton until his death was a local historian who organised the WEA classes and talks in the area. John also used to run classes and give talks for the WEA.
The first Primitive Methodist Preacher to visit Pickering took his stand on a stone half way up Burgate on the left-hand side, possibly on a market day when the more usual meeting places were crowded. The first Primitive Methodist Chapel was opened on the 22nd April 1821 in Bridge St Pickering, the Rev. Jane Ansdale and six other preachers delivering several sermons to crowds spoken of in retrospect as approaching 5,000 people. The chapel still stands behind a butcher’s shop, reached by a short passage, but has been adapted to the purposes of a masonic lodge. A camp meeting was held in the town on August 19th 1821. The second Primitive Methodist Chapel was built in 1851 on Bridge St Pickering to accommodate a larger congregation. It was sited almost opposite the other and is now a shop. The cost of the building was originally £580. John Jobling was Superintendent. The number of members in the Pickering Society was 129. The chapel was built to accommodate 580, 400 in rented pews and 180 in free seats. A sabbath school was also begun. For a time, the society used the buildings on both sides of the street but the old Chapel was eventually let to other religious groups – the New Connexion Methodists, the Baptists, a branch of the Congregationalists, the Swedenborgians, the Salvation Army, the Roman Catholics and today the Freemasons. This has helped groups survive as churches that would have found it difficult, at the time, to build for themselves. There was a strong revival throughout the Pickering circuit in the sixties. This bought a lot of boys into the church who were later the “strong men of the circuit,” including Mr John Frank. The revival was followed by a wave of Chapel building. In October 1869, the Primitive Methodist Magazine records missionary services started at the four main places in the Pickering circuit, with “large sympathetic audiences”. Pickering raised £38. 8. 0., Kirbymoorside £15. 7. 8., Thornton Dale £10. 8. 0. and Cropton £8. 10. 0., total over £73. The third Primitive Methodist Chapel was built during 1884 -1885 on Potter Hill in Pickering for £3,400, to hold 650 -700 people etc. The great moving force behind its construction was John Frank J.P. The old chapel was then sold to the railway company for £1700.
There was a Primitive Methodist Society in Levisham by 1842 when the Circuit Plan records a Sunday meeting every fortnight and a monthly Monday meeting. Their little Chapel was built in 1859, two Levisham farmers, John Poad and Robert Stead, were among the trustees.
Ref: Levisham by Betty Halse
Malton Primitive Methodist Society Malton Chapel was opened on October 13th 1822 by John Verity, then travelling on the adjoining Pocklington station. It immediately became the centre of a wide circuit covering Ryedale and including Pickering, until 1842. Nathaniel West and John Lanta of Hull had preached at Malton and the villages roundabout between September – October 1820, the year in which Malton became a branch. Ref: Taken from They Kept Faith – John Rushton Beck Isle Museum
Perhaps this was the first PM Chapel in Malton and the Chapel built in 1866 the second one to be built. There definitely would have been a Chapel in Malton before 1866 because Malton was the centre of a large circuit.
Kirbymoorside Primitive Methodist Society A “lowly building” was acquired at Kirby in 1824 to serve as a Chapel. It continued until c1860s, when it was reported that the society had opened “a new and elegant chapel in West End”. The foundation stone of a new schoolroom was also laid in 1861. The Chapel of 1861 was built to house the larger meetings of the district as well as to serve the town. It is said that when the plans were made, the stewards forgot to make any provision for getting up to the gallery. George Stynn? of York was the architect. He produced a rather elaborate design, using yellow brick with Italianate details. There was a pedimented front with rusticated brick pilasters, an open staircase rising over the basement floor to the entrance doors. The interior was well lit and finely decorated. Here the congregation continued actively their many functions. The Sunday School, 56 scholars in 1856, met in the hall. A strong temperance movement was supported, and the Lumley’s became noted for their women’s prayer meetings. Later writers spoke of “the sterling quality of the women here”. There was a large Young People’s Endeavour. Early in the 20c, Mr J. W. Lumley was choir master and school secretary and the “genial and faithful” Mr W. Donald was society steward. A Mrs Clarke who “saw the Ranters come to town” was still living in 1909. An outstanding personality in the society was John Lumley, a self-taught man, who began work as a farm labourer but became a schoolmaster and druggist. He early read through the New Testament once a month, and mastered the points of disagreement between Calvinism and Arminianism. He is said to have committed to memory the whole of the Epistle to Romans. In 1838, he lost his position with the Wesleyan Methodists due to his unwillingness to pledge himself not to preach to other denominations. In 1840, he joined the Primitive Methodists ultimately becoming a local preacher, school superintendent and class leader. In 1844, he published a work on “The Necessity, Nature and Design of the Atonement”. Between 1845 and 1850, he lived in the United States where he died. William Thompson Lumley continued the family tradition serving the circuit for 63 years till his death in 1897, a “powerful factor” in the district. Ref: They Kept Faith – John Ruston A Beck Isle Museum Publication
Cropton Primitive Methodist Society recalled the open air A “mighty cause” is said to have existed at Cropton in the 19thc. In 1944, R. Burriman of Keld Head recalled the open-air love feast held by the Primitives every August Bank Holiday Sunday afternoon at Cropton. In the evening the speakers, mostly local though with an occasional visitor, began at the top of the village with their congregation, and marched down, singing rousing Methodist hymns all the way. When the service had begun a large pot of water was handed around the congregation by the Chapel steward and everyone was given a biscuit, to aid the voices. Here, the afternoon services were known as camp meetings and those in the evenings as love feasts in his recollection. The hymn singing was full of fervour and most members were prepared to stand and give testimony of what God had done for them. The last camp meetings were held just before World War 1. When George Pennock and Mr. Beilby would “shout and pray” at the tree at the bottom of the village. In the Chapel, the old hands sang the Song to Glory at the top of their voices and banging on the seats, “fortified by biscuits and tea”. Harwood Brierley’s oft repeated story may bear on the coming of this society to the village. He told in a guidebook of a worthy Malton local preacher who was libelled by a Cropton Anglican Church Warden who did not want nonconformist services in the village. Thomas Warden wrote that “a man will be coming to Cropton soon who calls himself the Yorkshire Evangelist. He is a great fat, overfed fellow and I want to give Cropton folk some information about him. He has an enormous appetite. He ate at Westerdale three of Mr. Cass Smith’s best show sheep in one week, and he ate a fat bullock, and all Sally Ford’s preserves. He wants thirteen eggs for breakfast every day and a big ham every third day.” The Evangelist came, and several returned home converted including the Church Warden – or so the story goes. Ref: They Kept Faith – John Rushton – Beck Isle Museum
The tree still stands at the bottom of the village.
Brawby Primitive Methodist Society
Mr Davison of Malton laid the foundations of the Ebenezer Primitive Methodist Chapel on the 27th April 1838. The village was to be known as “a stronghold of Primitive Methodists”. The Trust Deeds show that the land on which the Chapel stands contains 117 square yards, part of a close called the Croft occupied by Robert Coates elder, Brawby farmer. He conveyed the land for the sum of £2 for the purpose of building a meeting house for the first Chapel Trustees – William Lamb Coates, farmer; George Fletcher, carrier; Richard Coates, farmer; John Norton, labourer of Butterwick; Robert Brown, tailor; Abraham Coates, farmer; Robert Coates, younger farmer. All bar one from Brawby. The cost was £150. When the trust deeds were renewed in 1882, only W. L. Coates was still alive. The Chapel was a simple building, the front showing a doorway projecting between two windows beneath a hipped roof. On an exciting occasion in February 1856, the members of the Wesleyan Society also attended service here, having been locked out of their own Chapel by a man who stood guard with an adze and a hammer. Ref: They Kept Faith – John Rushton A Beck Isle Museum Publication
On Ebay.co.uk via a search Primitive Methodist there is a photo when the chapel was being built, also many photos of other PM chapels and other items.
Thanks for the added clarity and sources Pat.
The closure of the Quakers Friends Meeting House in Helmsley occurred in the summer of 1841. In 1844 the Helmsley Primitive Methodist Society, having no building of their own, applied to rent the disused building of the Friends, and an amicable agreement was reached which has persisted until the present day 1960s) Ref: The History of Helmsley, Rievaulx and District
The Old Meeting House was built as a venue for Quaker meetings in 1812, at a cost of around £900. Quaker numbers had diminished in Helmsley by 1844 and the building was rented by the Primitive Methodists, who used it regularly until 1980, when the building became disused. It remained so until it was purchased from the Society of Friends in 1984 by the Old Meeting House Trust for the sum of £3,000, initially with a view to it becoming the home of the Helmsley Festival – the forerunner of the present Ryedale Festival. Today the Helmsley Arts Centre.
Ref: The Helmsley Arts Centre website
Here on this site we don’t know who the owners are Alexandra, but as Suffolk Archives have material up to 1975, any sales since then would have been recorded by the Land Registry. For a fee, they will be able to give you detail of the current owners. Other options include: i) the chapel would have been in the Lowestoft and East Suffolk circuit and you could contact the Superintendent Minister through https://eangliamethodist.org.uk/lowestoft-and-east-suffolk ii) talk to local people – in a village they will know everything, sometimes accurately iii) write to the local paper We wish you well with your search!
Thanks for the information Christopher
Thanks for the clarification Pat. Issue resolved!
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