Wessington Primitive Methodist chapel

Back Lane, Wessington, ALFRETON, DE55 6EA

Wessington Primitive Methodist chapel
Keith Guyler 1998

The notes with Keith Guyler’s photograph of Wessington Primitive Methodist chapel was built in 1849 and rebuilt in 1904. The chapel is now a house.

The 1850 Primitive Methodist magazine contains an account by John Dickenson of the opening of Washington (sic) Primitive Methodist chapel. For over twenty years they had been meeting in a cottage but were then given a plot to build by N Wheatcroft Esq of Moor Grange..  Farmers carted the materials, including stone from a quarry two miles away,  for free. The new chapel cost £85 of which they had raised £40. Opening preachers included Messrs Morton, Shaw and Turton

Washington in the magazine account is likely to be Wessington rather than one of the other Washingtons in the UK for a number of reasons:

  • the opening date of 1849
  • a Wheatcroft memorial in Crich church linking Wheatcroft with Washington
  • Rev Morton was based in the Chesterfield circuit in 1849
  • historical documents have Wessington and Washington as alternative names for the same place

Do you know better?

The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868) says that the main employment was stocking manufacture and that the Wesleyan and Primitive Methodists had chapels.  Interestingly, Kelly’s Directory of the Counties of Derby, Notts, Leicester and Rutland records that in 1891 there were two Primitive Methodist chapels in Wessington township.

Reference

Primitive Methodist magazine January 1850 page 53

Comments about this page

  • Derbyshire Record Office:

    Ref. D268: Amber Row Primitive Methodist Chapel, Wessington, built has a temporary Chapel to serve Amber Row & Amber Terrace, opened 1882, closed c.1905-6.

    Ref. D4268/2/1: Papers regarding closure and sale of PM Chapel.

    There are some records amongst collection D4268 continuing up to c.1932, 1933-1938, yet this Chapel was sold by the Primitive Methodist Connexion. Note: It is not clear if some of these later records are for the PM Chapel on Back Lane, Wessington?.

    Amber Row within the Parish of Wessington. 

    By Raymond E.O.Ella (08/05/2018)

Add a comment about this page

Your email address will not be published.