Patrick Comerford
I was writing and extensively on Sunday afternoon about Saint James the Great Church in Hanslope and its spire which is the tallest church spire in Buckinghamshire. But in my recent stroll around Hanslope, I also visited the two other churches or religious buildings in Hanslope: the Methodist Church on the High Street, and the Gospel Hall, a former Baptist chapel on Gold Street, are both listed buildings.
There is some evidence of a small non-conformist presence in Hanslope in the early 18th century. Two families of Quakers and five or six families of Baptists were living in the parish in 1706, but by 1709 there was only one family of Quakers and four or five Baptist families.
Hanslope Methodist Church on the High Street was built in 1828 and the church is part of the Northampton District and Milton Keynes Circuit in the Methodist Church. The Northern Churches Council within the Milton Keynes Circuit includes Hanslope, Stony Stratford and Deanshanger.
Methodism in Hanslope dates back 250 to the 1770s, when John Wesley preached on at least three occasions when he visited Hanslope: 7 November 1775, 20 October 1778 and 11 October 1779.
Wesley’s early visits to Hanslope are associated with the story of the Cock Inn on the High Street. The first Cock Inn stood on a site that would become nos 16 and 18 High Street. When Wesley visited Hanslope, the landlord of the Cock underwent a conversion, closed the pub, and changed the use of the premises to two shops, a draper’s and a grocery.
Since then, the building has housed a number of premises, including a butcher’s, which had its own slaughter house at the back. The original building was demolished, and the Cock Inn moved to its present premises in the 1930s.
Before 1828, Methodists in Hanslope met in a room in the building that was later the old, thatched Cock Inn, owned by a Mr Panter.
The Wesleyan Chapel was built in the 1828 and later enlarged. The join can be seen on the side wall. The schoolroom was then added, and the pulpit had a back that could be pulled down, so that the congregation could overflow into the schoolroom.
Records show that in 1851 two services were held on Sundays, with 100 people attending in the afternoon and a congregation of 105 in the evening.
Plans were drafted in the early of 20th century to build a new, larger chapel on the site of Hanslope Treasures Shop, the building next to chapel. John Rose, who owned the property, sold it to the chapel at low cost for this purpose. However, the plans were abandoned when a number of Methodists in Hanslope people moved north to Derbyshire for employment. The kitchen and water toilets were added in the 1950s.
The church celebrated its 150th anniversary in 1978. After the anniversary celebrations, a restoration scheme was undertaken, when a solid floor was put in and the pews were sold and replaced by chairs, some bought with a legacy from Mrs Winifred McTavish. Later the floor was carpeted thanks to a legacy from Miss Lottie Hawkes enabled.
The Garden of Prayer and Remembrance behind the church was opened on 27 May 2018, thanks to a bequest from the Revd Phyllis Brock (1931-2014).
The Methodist minister in Hanslope is the Revd Dr Kofi Tekyi-Ansah, and other ministers serving the church include the Revd Margaret Goodall, the Revd Barbara Winner and the Revd Stephanie Hibberd. Sunday services are at 10:30 am, with Holy Communion on the first Sunday of the month.
The Gospel Hall on Gold Street, Hanslope, faces onto Market Square and was originally built in 1809 as a Strict and Particular Baptist Chapel. The Baptist Chapel was founded by Thomas Hindes, who donated the site for the chapel stands. He died on 10 July 1844. The building continued to be used as a Baptist chapel into the 20th century.
The present Brethren group using the Gospel Hall can be traced back to 1883, when John Orr-Ewing from Weston-Super-Mare hired a small room in a Church of England Mission Hall in Long Street, Hanslope. Because the room was small, his supporters decided to find a site to pitch a Gospel tent. Joseph Gregory, who lived near to what is now the entrance to Saint James’ Close, agreed to a tent being pitched in his orchard in June 1883, and for ten weeks a group of four men preached in the ten night after night: John Orr-Ewing, Edward Stack, John Brunton and Charles Moreton.
The tent was taken down at the end of 1883 and weekly meetings continued to be held at 43 High Street until 1914. Other visiting preachers at this time included Walter E Willey of Ealing, London, and a Mr Horton who travelled by train from Berkhamstead to Castlethorpe each Sunday morning and made the return journey each Sunday evening. Other visiting preachers included Arthur Lawes (1851-1928), Luther Rees who was once a heavyweight boxer, and JM Shaw.
On Bank Holiday Monday, August 1908, the assembly held its first all-day conference in a tent belonging to Arthur Lawes opposite Green End Farm, Hanslope, the home of the Slade family.
The Baptist Chapel was in an empty and derelict state by 1913, when was sold at auction in the Watts Arms, Hanslope, to William Slade for £150. His brother Richard Slade bought the pews for the hall for £5. The first gathering in the Gospel Hall was a conference on Saturday 4 August 1914, the same day that World War I started.
William Slade sold the hall in 1923 to a trust, and the assembly continues to meet in the same building in Gold Street to this day. Its external appearance remains largely unchanged, although the old vestry and external lavatory at the rear were demolished in the late 1970s to make way for a large ante-room with a kitchen area.
There was further restoration and refurbishment in 1984-1985 when five new windows were installed, the entrance area was redesigned, new toilets installed, the wooden floor in the main hall was replaced with a concrete floor and a new pulpit was installed. The front doors were subsequently replaced in 1987.
The chapel or hall celebrated its bicentenary in 2009, when a new separate kitchen was installed, as well as new toilet facilities, a new heating system, new lighting and new chairs.
