Leamington Spa Ebenezer Primitive Methodist chapel

High St, Leamington Spa, CV31 3AN

Leamington Ebenezer Primitive Methodist chapel
Keith Guyler 2002

Ebenezer Primitive Methodist chapel in Leamington High Street was opened in 1852 and served until 1921 when it was superceded by the chapel in Warwick Street.  There is debate about whether it was a new building in 1852 or an existing museum.

The High Street chapel after closure became a Co-Op store for many years. At the time of Keith Guyler’s photograph in 2002 it was the HSS Tool Hire centre with a Nightclub above.  On Google Street View in September 2014 it is a Polish supermarket with a “gentlemen’s club” above.

The building still retains the pattern of windows on the upper floor.


 

Reference:

Leamington history website accessed August 10th 2015

Comments about this page

  • The early Primitive Methodists met in a room ‘set out as a chapel’ in the Temperance Hall in Clemens Street that was recorded in the 1851 religious census. It had sittings for 110 and 90 people attended the evening service but there was no Sunday School at that time. A property was purchased in 1852 in the High Street (on the corner with Wise Street); it included ‘The Star’ public house (unsurprisingly sold off soon afterwards) and James Bisset’s museum (built in 1819) that was converted into a chapel by removing the upper floor. A Sunday School for 200 children was attached to the High Street chapel. This chapel appears in Warwickshire trade directories from 1860-1932 and on 1st and 2nd edition local Ordnance Survey maps (1800s-1900s). The congregation moved to a pre-existing chapel in Warwick Street in 1921 (see separate entry on this). Sources: 1851 religious census for Warwickshire, HO 129.403.2.1.13; Warwickshire trade directories and Ordnance Survey maps; Warwickshire County Record Office, CR 1688/46, 53; site visit 2018.

    By Anne Langley (28/02/2020)

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