Thanks to Rev David Long for information about a former Primitive Methodist chapel in Bickershaw.
David was researching war memorials for the Imperial War Museum and found a reference to a memorial in the Bickershaw chapel here: https://www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk/memorial/279174/, from which he compiled an entry on the Imperial War Museum Register: https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/86711
David also found a snippet of life in the chapel in the Primitive Methodist leader of November 1920 with an account of a cobweb social at the chapel. It was opened by Miss Prescott who introduced “a splendid recital ” by Mrs Clemens of Elland, assisted by Messrs Hughes and Hirst.
Have you been to a cobweb social?
Street View in 2011 shows the chapel still in existence, but disused. It carries the datestone proclaiming “Primitive Methodist School Chapel 1899”. The Prims often built a dual purpose building when they could not afford to build both a school and a chapel. The plan was always to build a “proper” chapel later.
The satellite view suggests the site has been cleared.
Reference
Primitive Methodist Leader November 1920 page 647 accessed online 15/03/2023 at: https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:15m2058&datastreamId=FULL-TEXT.PDF
Comments about this page
A blog from 2008 sourced a 1903 newspaper article about a cobweb social:
“Each guest or participant is handed the end of a string or a card on which is a number the duplicate of which is attached to the end of a string; or if preferable, each guest may be allowed to select his own string. The ends of these strings are all in the reception-room, or bunched in one place, so that all start from the same room. They should be of different colours, or those for the gentlemen of one colour, and those for the ladies of another.
Each guest starts out leisurely to follow his or her string to the end. These strings are run in all sorts of directions, woven about articles of furniture, around the piano legs, up the stairway, down again, from one room to another, crossing other strings, and forming a labyrinth of cobwebs, which gives the name to the entertainment. At the extreme end of these strings are souvenirs, or the name of the partner whom the guest is expected to escort to supper. Much fun is caused in following up the strings and clearing the tangles. The guests need not hurry, and oftentimes, as they meet on their journeys, they spend a few minutes in merrily chatting.”
Eureka Entertainments: Containing a Wide Variety of New and Novel Entertainments Suitable to All Kinds of Public and Private Occasions, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Penn Publishing Company, 1894, accessed at Google Books (http://books.google.com/books?id=oHHh6RAmq-MC&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0) on August 29, 2008.
Add a comment about this page