Ancroft Primitive Methodist chapel

Comments about this page

• I think this is the former Ancroft Moor Presbyterian Church

  By George Scott (19/07/2024)

• I suspect the church you are looking for is part of the land we own which includes the Chapel, Manse and Church Hall. Here is a Google link to the location (https://maps.app.goo.gl/Thbm7dCD1pFX8TsB8). There is also a couple of photos from circa 1970 (https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/englands-places/card/290107?g=8444)

  Since purchasing last year it we have been trying to learn a little of it’s history.

  By Mark Blair (17/07/2024)

• I share John Walley’s scepticism about a church in Ancroft. My grandmother went to school in Ancroft in the 1880’s but they worshipped at Lowick.
  The 1851 return for Holy Island also seems
  ‘ aspirational’ rather than factual, but it’s hard to find the evidence.

  By George Scott (09/05/2024)

• I think the comment you are referring to is here John: Thou shepherd of Israel and mine

  By Christopher Hill (09/05/2024)

• I am going out on a limb on this chapel, did an Ancroft Chapel ever exist as a separate entity?

  The confusions may stem from the fact that Ancroft was the parish, the chapel at West Allerdean was in the parish of Ancroft. (ref 1851 census transcription).

  I also read another comment, which I did not bookmark at the time and cannot find again, that someone’s family used to walk from Ancroft village to (West) Allerdean Chapel to attend the Sunday services.

  The abstract below from the Origin and History of the Primitive Methodist Church.refers to the chapel at Allerdean being a memorial to John Brown of Ancroft
  (https://fada.birzeit.edu/jspui/bitstream/20.500.11889/4561/1/the%20origin%20v.2.pdf Page 177)

  Of the Berwick laymen who have ” obtained a good report,” we can but refer to one or two. James Young with a considerable dash of eccentricity, and Michael Clarke of Belfort, were both notable men. John Brown of Ancroft was a fine specimen of a border tenant-farmer—broad-shouldered and broad-minded, to whom the eyes of men turned as one in every way fitted to represent the people at Westminster, though Sir Edward Grey eventually became the accepted candidate. Mr. Brown was, for
  many years, a conspicuous and devoted worker for our cause. The Allerdean church stands as his memorial.

  It is disappointing to have any precise details to support my suspicion, the transcript of the 1851 census return does not say that a chapel existed at Ancroft at that time. it records a chapel in Ancroft Parish, which as we know includes Allerdean, also that the steward George Craik had a postal address in South Ancroft for official correspondence.

  The 1892 25″ map (©NLS) shows a PM chapel at West Allerton, is the present 1903 building a replacement for an older building, the dedication to John Brown? I will follow that link and see if anything turns up.

  By John Walley (09/05/2024)

• No success at the minute in locating this chapel on any old maps. Ancroft was also the parish,and the postal address given for the steward of Ancroft South Moor was a small hamlet to the south of Ancroft.

  Ancroft did have a school building, is this the one mentioned in the document?

  By John Walley (02/05/2024)