Walton on the Wolds Primitive Methodist chapel

Walton on the Wolds is near Loughborough, and a chapel at Walton was on the Loughborough PM plan from 1822 to 1876 and then on the Sileby plan from 1883 to 1899, as can be seen from elsewhere on this site. The 6 inch and 25 inch Ordnance Survey maps from 1883 to 1919 clearly mark a chapel behind the building on the right of this photograph. The plans from the 1890s reveal the names of the chapel Steward, and by cross referencing them with the 1881 census I have discovered that a Henry Phipps, his wife and mother lived in Chapel Yard. Although a meeting of 50 Primitive Methodists was registered at the 1829 Quarter Sessions, this chapel did not send in a return for the 1851 Ecclesiastical Census, nor was it listed as a registered place of worship in 1867, when the Registrar General published a full list.

Although north Leicestershire was the third area of mission activity by the Primitive Methodists, in 1817-1818 the smaller rural societies struggled, especially at the time of the agrarian depression of the last quarter of the century. The 1899 Sileby Circuit Plan lists a Walton Chapel Committee, which seems to have consisted of men from around the Circuit. This suggests that the situation in Walton was causing concerns, and that the end was approaching.