Bulkington Primitive Methodist chapel

Return from Bulkington Primitive Methodist preaching place in the 1851 Census of Places of Public Religious Worship
Provided by David Tonks

The Lower Primitive Methodist Chapel at Bulkington was built in Bedworth Road (now Bedworth Close) in 1849 and appears in the 1851 religious census: there were sittings for 112 and an attendance of 100 at the evening service; they ran a Sunday School with 38 children attending. The minister was Joseph Harris (who also served Collycroft nearby).

In 1852-3 they were holding afternoon and evening services on Sundays plus an evening one on Wednesdays. Preacher T. Masters lived in Bulkington; they were to hold two salvation meetings in October and a missionary meeting in November. There was a complaint about an unlicensed burial at the Primitive Methodist Chapel in Bulkington in 1855.

The chapel appears on the 1st and 2nd edition OS maps (1880s-1900s) and in Warwickshire trade directories from 1874 to 1932. It was part of the Coventry circuit and did not join the Wesleyan Methodists until 1945. The chapel had become the local Methodist Church by the 1950s but was later sold and houses have been built on the site.

Sources:

religious census HO 129.398.1.7.23; Michael Harris: Preachers’ Plan Coventry PM Circuit 1852-3; TNA: Complaint, MH13/137/200, 1855; Warwickshire trade directories; OS maps; site visit 2017.

Comments about this page

  • I recorded in 1959 – but where I got the information from I don’t recall (perhaps GF Spencer) – the foundation as being in 1845, not 1849. Are there two dates? Foundation 1845, building 1849?
    It was extended in 1909 and a kitchen added in 1931

    By Ralph James (11/02/2019)

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