Scotter Primitive Methodist chapel, Lincolnshire

The Primitive Methodist Chapel in Gainsborough Road closed in 1966
Keith Guyler, 1997

Scotter is a small village in Lincolnshire, south of Scunthorpe. It gave its name to the Scotter District of the Primitive Methodist church. The missionaries from Nottingham entered North-east Lincolnshire in 1819, but such was the growth that in 1820 the Gainsborough branch became the Scotter circuit, and from 1821 to 1823 the head of a district.

The first chapel was built in 1819, opened on September 5th, by John Harrison and Hannah Parrott, a second was built in 1849. Kendall contends “Scotter holds the distinction of being the only rural village at which a Primitive Methodist Conference has been held.”

A camp meeting was held on Hardwick Hill on 13 June (see photograph in Kendall vol. 1 page 416). He quotes a verse by Sanders who travelled in the Scotter circuit in 1834:
“There is a pleasant Pilgrims’ inn
By Hardwick Hill you’ll find it.
Persons who walk the downward road
Pass on and do not mind it.
This house to many is well known.
The Lord with bliss hath crowned it.”

Comments about this page

  • The 1850 Primitive Methodist magazine (page 180) contains an account by Hugh Campbell of the laying of the foundation stones for the second chapel and its opening services from December 2nd 1849. Preachers included T Holliday (London), W Sanderson (Doncaster), J Reynard (Leeds), T Denby (Wesleyan)

    There had been uneasy discoveries with the previous chapel – in particular the fact that although it had been used for thirty years, it had never been formally conveyed to the Connexion so was in private ownership and the trustees did not always behave sympathetically. A Sunday school was also established.

    The chapel measured 39′ x 33′ x 23’6″

    By Christopher Hill (23/05/2021)
  • Public Record Office (Now The National Archives), ref. PRO, RG4/1938: Scotter Primitive Methodist Chapel (1819), Baptisms 1824 to 1837.

    By Raymond E.O.Ella (05/01/2018)

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