Patrick Comerford
I was writing yesterday about the Church of Saint Simon and Saint Jude in Castlethorpe, which celebrates its patronal festival tomorrow (28 October), and about the village of Castlethorpe the previous evening. But for over a century and a half, the north Buckinghamshire village, near Stony Stratford and Wolverton, also had a thriving Methodist community and a lively Methodist chapel, from 1811 until 1979.
Methodism had a strong presence in this area going back to a time when John and Charles Wesley regularly preached throughout Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire. John Wesley visited Stony Stratford on at least five occasions and the Wesley Elm under which he preached stood in the south-west corner of the Market Square.
However, time and Dutch elm disease have taken their toll, and the last remains of the tree in Stony Stratford were removed and replaced with an oak tree in 2007.
The Wesleyan chapel in Castlethorpe was opened in 1811. The old chapel was small, merely a room 26 ft long by 20 ft wide, and it was once described as a ‘right little tight little’ place.
With the spread and popularity of Methodism in the village, the chapel became far too small for the needs of the congregation.
It was enlarged in 1888 and commemorative foundation stones were laid on 11 July 1888 by Captain Edmund Hope Verney, a former naval captain, and William Grimes, who was described as ‘the founder of Wesleyan Methodism in the village’ and who had seen the opening of the original chapel 77 years before.
Captain Verney placed a £5 note on his stone and said it was the first foundation stone he had ever laid. He recalled his time as a midshipman in the Crimea War and spoke of his visits to the trenches in Sebastopol. He then said Methodists in Castlethorpe were engaged in a great war that would last as long as life. To cheers he said it would always be battle of good against evil, of all the powers of strength of good and upright men and women against all the evil influences of the world.
Before the ceremony a short prayer meeting was held an improvised plank and canvas tabernacle erected close by, and short financial statement was made by the Rev. J. Harris, superintendent of the circuit.
The chapel was extended on the north side, and completed extended chapel was opened in October 1888. The architect was W Poole of Woburn Sands and the contractor was T Islip of Northampton.
Four years earlier, Margaret Verney, later Lady Verney, had laid the foundation stone of the Congregational Church in Winslow in 1884. Captain Edmund Hope Verney (1838-1910) had been the MP Buckinghamshire (1885-1886), and would later become the MP for Buckingham (1889-1891). His stepmother was a sister of Florence Nightingale, and Verney, and he was a Liberal politician who supported Irish Home Rule.
But Verney, who spoke so morally as he laid one of the foundation stones for Castlethorpe Methodist Church in 1888, was expelled from the House of Commons in 1891 and his name was removed from the naval list after he pleaded guilty and was convicted of procuring a girl under 21 years of age, Nellie Maud Baskett, for immoral purposes and was jailed for a year.
After his release from prison he became Sir Edmund Hope Verney in 1894 when he succeeded to his father’s title of baronet.
However, with declining congregations, the last service was held in the chapel on 20 May 1979 before it closed. The chapel was subsequently sold and used as a domestic residence for a time until it became the Acorn Nursery in 1989.
Today, the nearest Methodist churches to Castlethorpe today are in Hanslope, Wolverton, Stony Stratford and Deanshanger.
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