Ilkeston Primitive Methodist chapel

Bath Street, Ilkeston DE7 8BB

Ilkeston St Andrrews, Bath Street
Christopher Hill 2015
Ilkeston St Andrrews Wilmot Street frontage
Christopher Hill 2015

The Old Ilkeston website quotes much detail from an article in the Ilkeston Advertiser (1916) celebrating the centenary of the Primitive Methodist Church in Ilkeston, and other articles from the same newspaper 50 years later which outline events in the story of Primitive Methodism in Ilkeston.  They include:

  • Ilkeston was successfully missioned by Sarah Kirkland in August 1816.
  • in 1817 a house in Florence Square, off  Wood Street, was acting as the first meeting place of the Primitive Methodists in Ilkeston and continued in use until the ‘Prims’ moved to their Old Slade Chapel on the southern side of Chapel Street at its junction with Burr Lane which opened in 1823 with galleries erected in 1831.
  • The 1851 Religious Census shows the Slade Chapel as accommodating 330 people.  The Sunday morning attendance was 60 and the Sunday School numbered 105, while the afternoon School figure was 190 and the evening congregation was 300.
  • As a result of the initiative of the Rev. William Carthy, Circuit superintendent minister from 1848 to 1853, a new Primitive Methodist Chapel in Bath Street was built in 1852, at a cost of £1,300.
  • The former chapel was later converted into two cottages – which were demolished at the end of 1982, after being unoccupied for several years.
  • By 1888 Sunday School rooms and cottages had been built at the side of the chapel in Spring Lane  — later Wilmot Street.

The Bath Street chapel building was demolished in 1973, along with the Wesleyan Chapel also in Bath Street where in 2015 the Wilknson shop is sited.  The two congregations united to form St Andrew’s, which now occupies the same site as the former Primitive Methodist.

There were also well established Primitive Methodist chapels in Cotmanhay (north Ilkeston) and Nottingham Road (south east Ilkeston). 

The Primitive Methodist magazine for May 1853 gives an extended account by William Carthy of the opening of the Bath Street chapel in 1852 and the background to it, including difficulties in obtaining freehold land when most of the area controlled by the Dike of Rutland.

The architect was Robert Barlow and the foundation stone was laid on May 25th 1852 by the late Thomas Gisborne accompanied by Alderman Birkin of Nottingham. Preachers at the services and tea meeting included Revs JA Baynes, C Hargreaves, C Springthorpe, J Brownson, S Antliff, CH Boden, W Carthy and Mr Thomas Hirst and J Bailey. 

The article does not say when the chapel was opened, but the opening services ended on Monday January 3rd 1853. Preachers included Revs R Jukes, J Brownson, C Lace, JA Baynes, G Syme (both of Nottingham) and John Corbin of Derby.

The article also includes a list of major donors (in order of generosity) – John Smedley, Rt Hon E Strutt MP, William Evans MP, Thomas Bass MP, CH Colville MP, William Mundy MP, AM MUndy, Dewes Coke, Alderman Birkin, Arthur Morley, Benjamin Morley, Matthew Hobson, L Heyworth MP, Thomas Horsfall.


Reference

The Old Ilkeston website accessed January 27th 2015

Primitive Methodist magazine May 1853 pp.307-309

Comments about this page

  • Derbyshire Record Office :
    ref. D3944, records, Ilkeston Primitive Methodist, Bath St., 1846?, – to 1930s, – to 1968.

    ref. D1820/M/176-181, copy marriage registers (2, copies for Chapel, others for civil registration), years 1899-1930s, onward years to 1947 : Bath Street, Primitive Methodist, Ilkeston.

    By Raymond E. O. Ælla (20/11/2021)

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