Newcastle upon Tyne, Walker Primitive Methodist chapel

Welbeck Road, Walker NE6 3AA

Walker: Return from the Primitive Methodist chapel in the 1851 Census of Places of Public Religious Worship
transcribed by David Tonks
Walker Primitive Methodist chapel

The Return from Walker Primitive Methodist chapel in the 1851 Census of Places of Public Religious Worship tells us of  great change. The building where they met had only just been converted into a chapel in June 1850, having formerly been a stable, and they had recently started a Sunday school.

In an 1870 Primitive Methodist magazine article updating on the development of the Connexion in Newcastle, WR Leighton tells us about the recent opening of 4 chapels.

Included amongst them was Walker Primitive Methodist chapel. The new chapel held 330 people and had a  schoolroom for 200 scholars.  It cost £800. This was very similar to the nearby St Anthony’s Primitive Methodist chapel  – another one of Mr Leighton’s four.

We couldn’t find a Primitive Methodist chapel in Walker on the Ordnance Survey maps available to us although David Tonks has found a couple of Wesleyan Methodist chapels.  However,  see Nigel McMurray’s comment below for the precise location, also shown on the map.  There are modern flats on the site in 2019.

Reference

Primitive Methodist magazine 1870 page 697

Comments about this page

  • Thanks for the local insight Nigel.

    By Christopher Hill (15/03/2021)
  • Being Walker-born I can offer further information from memory on the location of this chapel. It was situated at the junction of Welbeck Road (which was then the main thoroughfare between Newcastle and the Walker docks, coalmines and chemical works) and Cowen Street. Like many Newcastle and Wallsend PM chapels it was constructed as part of the terrace of flats which flats are still extant. It was at the end of a terrace on Welbeck Road. The PM, Wesleyan and United Methodist chapels of Walker combined before 1932 in anticipation of Methodist Union and the congregations became located at the Wesleyan chapel (Welbeck Road / Church Street) which is now also closed . The former PM chapel then became the dining hall for the nearby Roman Catholic school. Sadly the building was subject to an arson attack in the 1980s and no longer exists.
    The chapel is listed incorrectly as “Sunday School” on the OS maps of 1913 and 1914 at the location above.

    By Nigel McMurray. (14/03/2021)

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