Woobourn Primitive Methodist chapel

but where was it?

The Primitive Methodist magazine contains an account by William Grant of the opening of Woobourn Primitive Methodist chapel. Opening services were held on 30/07/1832 & 31/07/1832 and the preachers were Brothers Oscroft & Pentney on the Sunday and Rev J S (Independent minister) on the Monday.

The society procured land with two cottages and on it built a neat chapel with gallery at one end. The new chapel measured 18′(w)  30′(l) x 18′(h).

I’m not entirely sure where Woobourn was.  There is a village spelled Wooburn in Buckinghamshire and Wooburn Green does have a Primitive Methodist chapel on the Ordnance Survey map of 1876. Alternatively, Woobourn in Surrey was the country house of of Philip Southcote. Was that it? Or is it Woburn by another spelling?

Reference

Primitive Methodist magazine 1833 page 254

 

Comments about this page

  • I think there is evidence that this is Wooburn Green chapel. Barry P. Sutcliffe and David C. Church “250 years of Chiltern Methodism” (1988) state that the cause was at the bottom of Windsor Hill and dates from 1832.(p161) There was a Camp Meeting there in 1835. The National Archives hold the Register of Births and Baptisms at the Primitive Methodist Chapel in the parish of Wooburn Green, Buckinghamshire from 1832 to 1836 (RG4/1361A and RG4/2089).According to Sutcliffe and Church there is a report in the Primitive Methodist Magazine of a revival in 1857: two people converted. The chapel was taken over by the Wesley Reform Union in 1860, and in 1864 the Wesleyan Reform Union Magazine reports on the activities of the chapel (Vol, IV p 74) The Buckinghamshire Family History Society index indicates that the first mention of the chapel was in 1832 and that it closed in 1938.It was, however, still registered as a Primitive Methodist chapel in 1867, and although marked on all the Ordnance Survey maps published between 1877 and 1938 as a chapel where a denomination is given it is Prim. In other words, beware of inertia in official records!

    Leary places the two preachers in London in 1832.

    By Philip Thornborow (20/11/2019)

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