Wrestlingworth Primitive Methodist

Bedfordshire

Wrestlingworth is a small village on the Bedfordshire border with Cambridgeshire.

Registration for PM worship was made on 29 November 1866 by James Young, Sun Street, Biggleswade PM Minister.

However, Methodism had come to Wrestlingworth in the 18th Century when one of the parish’s vicars, Samuel Hicks became a friend of John Wesley. Wesley preached in St Peter’s church a number of times. In 1758, Wesley noted in his journal how ‘in the middle of the sermon a woman before me dropped down as dead as one had done the night before. In a short time she came to herself and remained deeply sensible of her want of Christ.’

Wesley’s arrival in Wrestlingworth in 1787 was by a farm cart as the roads were in too bad a condition to allow a carriage through.

Petty in The History of the Primitive Methodist Connexion from its origin states that in 1847 John Guy and his colleagues took PM to Biggleswade and from there ‘Wrestlingworth was also visited successfully.’ He also noted that ‘A friend who has united with us has fitted up a small barn, for which we are to pay him a rental of two pounds per year.’

The momentum of PM in Wrestlingworth did not continue and the Registration for Worship was cancelled on 19 April 1895.

Sources and References

Bedfordshire Chapels and Meeting Houses: Official Registration 1672-1901 Volume 75 Bedfordshire Historical Record Society – Edited by Edwin Welch

The King’s England Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire – Arthur Mee

John Wesley’s Journal 9 November 1758

The History of the Primitive Methodist Connexion from its origin – John Petty

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