A Primitive Methodist chapel is shown on Ordnance Survey maps in 1884-5. By 1961 it is labelled School Street Methodist church. It disappears from later maps.
It is not accessible on Street View so needs some feet on the ground to investigate.
Author
Identified by Paul Wood
Page added
11/03/2019
Comments about this page
A Primitive Methodist chapel was built in Oakthorpe 1834. In 1851 it provided 120 free and 10 other sittings. In 1940 the accommodation consisted of a chapel measuring 30 feet by 40 feet and seating 140 persons on forms. There were no other rooms. I whole heartedly agree with Paul Wood’s emphasis on the need for site visit. In this case it would settle the question of whether the 1834 building was the same as the 1940 building. I would go further and say that every chapel site should be visited. Only a site visit can reveal what lies behind modern devlopments or what relics of a long gone building have been incorporated into the new structure. Even when a building has survived in tact it is worth examining for inscriptions and the kind of architectural detailing which can lift an otherwise mundane structure. Sources The National Archives,1851 ecclesiastical census HO129/414/2/11 (Ashby de la Zouche Union) John Rylands Library University of Manchester, DDPD1 Methodist Church Buildings: Statistical returns including seating accommodation as at July 1st 1940/477 (Ashby de la Zouche, Burton Road Circuit)
By G W Oxley (13/02/2021)
My father the late Rev’d Jack Charlton was minister of this chapel from 1957 to 1963. I remember School Street Chapel as being a standard “Prim Box” with the schoolroom adjoining, I think at right angles, and in the centre of the schoolroom a large roaring pot-belly cokestove with stovepipe going right up through the roof and open access all round the stove, although it had metal fireguarding surrounding it … What price Health & Safety in those days … ! But it was the only heating other than the ubiquitous tea-urn.
The pipe organ wound up at Granville Estate Chapel (now also closed) where I was privileged to play it in the mid 1970s, when Jack was Superintendent Minister of the South Derbyshire Circuit.
Comments about this page
A Primitive Methodist chapel was built in Oakthorpe 1834. In 1851 it provided 120 free and 10 other sittings. In 1940 the accommodation consisted of a chapel measuring 30 feet by 40 feet and seating 140 persons on forms. There were no other rooms.
I whole heartedly agree with Paul Wood’s emphasis on the need for site visit. In this case it would settle the question of whether the 1834 building was the same as the 1940 building. I would go further and say that every chapel site should be visited. Only a site visit can reveal what lies behind modern devlopments or what relics of a long gone building have been incorporated into the new structure. Even when a building has survived in tact it is worth examining for inscriptions and the kind of architectural detailing which can lift an otherwise mundane structure.
Sources
The National Archives,1851 ecclesiastical census HO129/414/2/11 (Ashby de la Zouche Union)
John Rylands Library University of Manchester, DDPD1 Methodist Church Buildings: Statistical returns including seating accommodation as at July 1st 1940/477 (Ashby de la Zouche, Burton Road Circuit)
My father the late Rev’d Jack Charlton was minister of this chapel from 1957 to 1963. I remember School Street Chapel as being a standard “Prim Box” with the schoolroom adjoining, I think at right angles, and in the centre of the schoolroom a large roaring pot-belly cokestove with stovepipe going right up through the roof and open access all round the stove, although it had metal fireguarding surrounding it … What price Health & Safety in those days … ! But it was the only heating other than the ubiquitous tea-urn.
The pipe organ wound up at Granville Estate Chapel (now also closed) where I was privileged to play it in the mid 1970s, when Jack was Superintendent Minister of the South Derbyshire Circuit.
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