Patrick Comerford
In my recent visits to churches in the Stafford and Rugeley areas in Staffordshire, I have been visiting churches I first got to know when I was in my late teens and early 20s, over 50 years ago, when I had a number of friends around Rugeley and Brereton and began writing freelance contributions to the Rugeley Mercury and the Lichfield Mercury.
At the end of last week, I visited Saint Michael’s Church in Brereton, which I wrote about yesterday. I later crossed the Main Road in Brereton to see the sad state of Brereton Methodist Church, which has been closed for over a year now and is on the market.
Brereton Methodist Church and Free School closed last year (March 2025), due to a dwindling congregation and a lack of funds. Although a sign outside continues to say there is a Sunday Service and Junior Church at 10:30, a larger sign advertises its sale through Creative Retail.
When Brereton Methodist Church was built in 1809, it was the first church building in Brereton, predating by almost 20 years Saint Michael’s Church, the Church of England parish church, which was built across the street on the opposite side of the Main Road in 1837.
Methodism was introduced to Brereton in 1806 by Thomas Gething, a colliery manager, and Brereton became a centre of Methodism in the 19th century. A group of Wesleyan Methodists in Brereton registered the house of Thomas Gething’s house as a meeting house in 1806, and a house in Rugeley was registered as a Wesleyan meeting house in 1808.
The first Wesleyan chapel in Brereton was built in 1809. Brereton House was the lifelong home of a local Methodist benefactor Elizabeth Birch and her sister Ann. In 1824, Elizabeth Birch built Railway Cottages, a row of six almshouses close to the Ginny Wagons tramway. The residents were to be poor persons of good moral character, aged over 50, who regularly attended the Methodist Chapel.
Elizabeth Birch also founded the Free School, built in Brereton in 1838 on land she bought from the trustees of the Wesleyan Chapel. The school provided education for boys aged 6-14 with poor parents living within three miles of Brereton. The master was always to be a member of the Wesleyan Methodist Society and the teaching was along religious lines, although lessons had to be free from any sectarian tendencies.
The school was endowed by Elizabeth Birch with £1,500 to pay £50 a year salary to the master and £10 a year for stationery. The school ran a night class for working miners, and fuel to heat the classrooms was provided free each winter from 1876 by Earl Talbot’s collieries in the area.
Thomas Birch and Elizabeth Birch also built six cottages or almshouses in Brereton in 1824 for poor widows aged 50 and over. She left a bequest of £1,500, the income to be spent on repairs and on the provision of 4 shillings a week to each occupant who attended the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Brereton.
Elizabeth Birch died in 1842 and was buried in the grounds of Brereton Methodist Church. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Brereton House was occupied by successive general managers of the collieries.
The Methodist Chapel in Brereton was replaced by the present church in 1872.
The school was closed in 1899 and the site was exchanged in 1904 for a larger one, also the property of the trustees of the Wesleyan Chapel. The endowment scheme was reorganised and provision was made for applying any surplus income for exhibitions at Rugeley Grammar School for boys and girls from Brereton.
The school became a controlled school in 1949 and by 1952 it was known as the George Vickers Methodist Primary School, recalling George Vickers who was schoolmaster from 1853 to 1904.
A pair of semi-detached Victorian houses with small front gardens, Wesley Cottages, were built in 1895, close to the road and the old Methodist Free School.
The symmetrical façade of the substantial dark red brick Methodist church stands close to the road, and its buttresses rise to stone pointed finials, creating a distinctive feature on the skyline of Brereton. The single-storey school stands back from the road in an unobtrusive position, yet it has an interesting roof shape and decorative brickwork, as well as a prominent datestone. In recent years, the building was used as a Sunday School and meeting room.
Elizabeth Birch is buried in the small walled graveyard behind Brereton Methodist Church. In all, 26 people are buried there, but the burial ground has not been used since the late 19th century and the last burial was in 1897. The trustees of the Cannock Chase Methodist Circuit agreed last year (2025) to formally close the burial ground at Brereton Methodist Chapel to all new burials ‘with immediate effect’.
Brereton Methodist Church closed last year, and ha been on the market since then with offers in excess of £125,000 being invited. A Methodist church stood on the site for more than two centuries, and a notice outside still says, ‘God welcomes all sorts’. The closure means a sad loss to the life of Brereton.
Brereton Methodist Church closed last year, and has been on the market since then with offers in excess of £125,000 being invited. A Methodist Church stood on the site for more than two centuries, and a notice outside still says, ‘God welcomes all sorts’. The closure means a sad loss to the life of Brereton.
