Morecambe Parliament Street Primitive Methodist chapel
Parliament Street, Heysham, Morecambe LA3 1RH
Ordnance Survey maps from 1913 show a Primitive Methodist chapel in Morecambe West End at the junction of West Street and Parliament Street – where there is a children’s playground on Street View in 2009 and 2016.
The previous 1891 map shows the site as undeveloped – indeed neither Parliament Street nor West Street extend as far as the location of the chapel, so the chapel was built at the end of the Nineteenth century. Lancashire Archives has records from 1898.
That said, Philip Thornborow tells us that Parliament Street, Morecambe, was built in 1931, according to the 1970 Statistical Returns . Gen UK simply dates it as before 1927.
A little light may come from the 1897 Primitive Methodist magazine, which tells us that “Morecambe station has sought sanction to erect suitable buildings for worship and the religious instruction of the young in the growing and fashionable west end of that popular seaside resort”. Was that Parliament street?
Reference
Primitive Methodist magazine 1897 page 395
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This church was closed at the end of August 1975 but re-opened 2 weeks later for the funeral of my grandfather, John Briscoe, who with his wife, Lena, was a stalwart of the society from around 1942 until he became ill in 1974. My sister was baptised there on Christmas Day 1960 and we paid frequent family visits.
I’ve added two maps of 1911 and 1931 to illustrate Philip’s explanation
There are three 25 inch OS maps of Morecambe, surveyed in 1911, 1931 and 1937 which solve this little mystery. At that scale the outline of the building is clearly shown, and Parliament Street PM chapel occupies a different footprint from 1931.
In other words the chapel was built in 1898, then rebuilt on another part of the plot in 1931.
Like most of the Methodist churches I remember from the Morecambe of my youth it is now closed, and indeed demolished.
The foundation stone of this building was laid by my paternal ancestors, the Crabtrees and the Nelsons, both families originally came from Bradford, but moved to Morecambe in the late 19th century.
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