Short visits to three more churches in Dunstable, one Methodist and twoin the Baptist tradition

The Methodist Church on the Square in Dunstable was built in 1909 and is the third on the site (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

My mains hopes in visiting Dunstable last week were to see Saint Peter’s Priory Church, the mediaeval Church of England parish church dating back to the foundation of an Augustinian Priory in the early 12th century, and Saint Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, a listed building that typifies the approach of the architect Desmond Williams to sacred and liturgical space.

But there were other churches to see too, including the Methodist Church on High Street South, Dunstable Baptist Church on Saint Marys Gate, and Christ Church, West Street, built as a Baptist chapel but now part of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches.

The Methodist Church on the Square in Dunstable was designed by GE Withers in 1909 and built in a ‘free Gothic’ style with a tall spire. The church is listed at Grade II because it illustrates the importance of Methodist worship in Dunstable in the early 20th century, for the quality of its design and for the completeness of the interior fittings including the gallery, bench pews and rostrum.

Methodists in Dunstable owe their origins to John Darley, a local carpenter and joiner who, when he was visiting Nottingham, went to the nearby market town of Bingham to hear John Wesley preach on 30 July 1770.

Wesley preached a powerful sermon resulting in John Darley’s conversion and he returned to Dunstable a changed man. Darley and others applied to the Bishop of Lincoln in 1797 for a license to register Thomas Summerfield’s house as a place of worship. Darley opened his own workshop in Church Street in 1812, inviting people to sing, pray and read the Bible.

The church is the third Methodist chapel on the site. The first Methodist chapel in Dunstable was built in 1831 but burned down in 1844 in an incendiary attack on adjoining farm buildings. It was rebuilt in 1845, and was enlarged in 1853, with an extra wing to accommodate 500 people, a Wesleyan day school at the back with 450 children attending on a regular basis, and a library.

The Methodist Church on the Square in Dunstable was designed by the architect George Edward Withers (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Disaster struck again in September 1908 when the second chapel was also burned down. How this fire started remains unknown but there had been a number of incendiary outbreaks in the area that summer. The Methodists pushed on with plans for a new church on a grand scale, with a spire that would be seen for miles around.

The foundation stone of the third church was laid on 31 May 1909 and it opened in December 1909 with an overflowing congregation when the Revd Dr John Scott Lidgett preached.

George Edward Withers (1873-1945) of Withers and Meredith specialised in designing nonconformist chapels. He had designed Bushey and Oxhey Methodist Church in 1905 when he was commissioned to design a new church in Dunstable. It opened in 1909 and the organ was installed in 1910.

The church is oriented from north-east to south-west and is roughly cruciform with a wide nave, with an offset tower at the north-east corner. The church is built of buff-coloured brick in English bond with Bath stone dressings and with plain tile roofs. It was built with a nave, galleried north and south aisles, a gallery that continues around the geographical east end, a rostrum at the geographical west end, with a gallery behind, and a ‘chancel’ at the geographical west.

The entrance at the east end is flanked by a squat north-east tower with embattled corner piers and a south-east tower with diagonal buttresses and an octagonal belfry steeple above. The east end has a large five-light window with reticulated tracery, a moulded four-centred arch and flanking four-centred arch lancets with buttresses rising between. The north and south elevations have gabled transepts and reticulated tracery in cambered arches.

Inside, there is an open timber roof structure. The interior still has its complete original set of pitch-pine furnishings, including galleries with tiered bench seating and benches in the transepts, aisles and nave. The walls are plastered. There is a four- centred domed arch above the ‘high’ end containing an organ loft and beneath it a rostrum and communion rail. The organ, installed in 1910, is flanked by lancet windows holding commemorative stained glass.

The transepts have four-bay four-centred arch arcades with slender polygonal piers with foliated capitals. The gallery cuts through the arcades and is curved around the east end.

Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century, the Square Methodist Church continued to evolve as a place of witness and worship in the town. The church completed a building project in September 2009 that opened up the front of the church and improved access and the welcome area. The main hall at the rear has separate access and is used for community events, jumble sales, coffee mornings, a drama group and market traders on Saturdays.

Dunstable Baptist Church at Saint Mary’s Gate (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Two other churches in Dunstable have roots in the Baptist tradition: Dunstable Baptist Church on Saint Mary’s Gate and Christ Church, West Street.

Baptist roots in the Dunstable area date back to Kensworth in 1652. William Brittan, a local leader, who had oversight in 1694, was instrumental in forming the first Baptist communities by leading meetings in homes in Dunstable and Houghton. The Baptist movement in the Dunstable area has two distinct historical streams: Dunstable Baptist Church at Saint Mary’s Gate, formerly Saint Mary’s Street, and Christ Church on West Street.

Dunstable Baptist Church at Saint Mary’s Gate describes itself as ‘a Grace Baptist Church who believe the Bible’ and traces its origins back over 350 years to 17th century nonconformist groups in Kensworth and Thorn. It was part of the ‘Strict Baptist’ tradition in Dunstable with roots dating back to the early 1700s. This was known as the Old Baptist Church as it belonged to an older religious group known as the Particular Baptists.

A piece of land in Saint Mary’s Street was bought by the spiritual heirs of John Bumyan in 1708 to build a meeting house. The Bunyan Meeting House or Old Baptist Chapel was enlarged in 1807 to twice its original size and a Sunday School was founded. But it was demolished after a violent storm severely damaged the chapel in 1849.

The present church was built in 1849, with a capacity for 400 people. It has been Grade II listed as a rare and exceptionally preserved example of mid-19th century nonconformist architecture, complete with its original gallery, box pew, and pulpit.

The other church in the Baptist tradition Dunstable is the former Baptist Church or chapel on West Street, now known as Christ Church Dunstable. It was founded by the General Baptists and built in 1847 to seat 700 people and used as a church and pa art-time school.

The church was built in red brick and stucco with a central pediment. It has two storeys, three arched windows that are round headed on the first floor and segmental on the ground floor. There are quoins, a slightly recessed centre and windows recessed in panels. Three central doors, each two-fold with 10 panels, are flanked by pilasters under consoles, cornice hood.

The church also took over what was the Plume of Feathers pub, and has turned it into a community coffee shop and advice centre.

I missed seeing the United Reform Church in Edward Street, which was once a school hall attached to the Congregational Church, which stood next to it until the 1980s. In addition, the Salvation Army, which came to Dunstable in 1885, has a building on Bull Pond Lane, one of the oldest lanes in Dunstable. There are many other churches, church sites and former churches for me to see. Hopefully, though, the summer is long enough for that.

Christ Church, West Street, a former Baptist church in Dunstable (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Mar Thoma Church to open new Indian church in former Central Methodist Church on Aldergate in Tamworth

The Central Methodist Church on Aldergate, Tamworth, closed in 2022 and has been acquired by the Mar Thoma Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

The former Methodist church in the centre of Tamworth, the Central Methodist Church in Aldergate, closed four years ago, after its last service on Sunday 22 May 2022. When it went for sale at auction a year later (18 May 2023), many fears among local people in Tamworth about the future for the building. The Victorian chapel, with a Gothic-style street frontage, had a guide price of over £150,000.

But now it appears that the church has been saved is going to continue in use as a church having been acquired by the Mar Thoma Church. Hermon Mar Thoma Church is based in Birmingham and its liturgy and services are in the tradition of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar.

The Mar Thoma Church is in formal ‘full communion’ with the Anglican Communion, including the Church of England, the Church of Ireland and the Episcopal Church in the US, with mutual recognition of each other's sacraments and full interchangeably of clergy.

In many places, Mar Thoma parishes have the endorsement of local Anglican bishops, and the theology of the Mar Thoma Church is close to Anglican traditions while maintaining Eastern liturgical heritage. It uses a reformed variant of the West Syriac Rite Divine Liturgy of Saint James, translated into Malayalam.

The Mar Thoma Church sees itself as continuation of the Saint Thomas Christians, a community traditionally believed to have been founded in the first century by Saint Thomas the Apostle, who is known as Mar Thoma n Syriac. The church describes itself as ‘Apostolic in origin, Universal in nature, Biblical in faith, Evangelical in principle, Ecumenical in outlook, Oriental in worship, Democratic in function, and Episcopal in character’.

Hermon Mar Thoma Church, Midlands, is a parish of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar, and held its first services in 1996. The church grew with the arrival of a new group of Diaspora Indians in the UK in 2002, including doctors, nurses, teachers and other professionals. A Midlands prayer group was formed in 2004 and it became a congregation in 2006 and later given the status of a parish church.

Hermon Mar Thoma Church was formed in May 2007. The present vicar is the Revd Saju Chacko, and there are five area prayer groups: Birmingham and Solihull; Coventry, Warwick and Nuneaton; Walsall, Wolverhampton and Stafford; Leicester; Nottingham, Derby and Burton on Trent.

Hermon Mar Thoma Church … a sign outside the former Central Methodist Church in Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The former Central Methodist Church on the west side of Aldergate, between St John’s Street and Lichfield Street, was one of 184 lots at Bond Wolfe’s auction on 18 May 2023. Ian Tudor of Bond Wolfe said at the time of the sale: ‘This former church … has been an important focal point for Tamworth for more than 130 years.’ He said the property was ‘suitable for a wide variety of alternative uses, subject to planning permission.’

The last service was held at the Central Methodist Church in Aldergate, Tamworth, on Sunday 22 May 2022, and the church building, which started life in Tamworth in 1886, closed. A decision has been taken to refocus the congregation on the 1960s building of Saint Andrew's Methodist Church in Thackeray Drive, Leyfields, now known as New Life Methodist Church.

The decision to close the church has left the town centre in Tamworth without a Methodist congregation or building for the first time since Methodism began in the 18th century.

The Methodist Church in Aldergate dated from a split that divided Tamworth’s Methodists in the mid-19th century. A new group was formed calling itself the Wesleyan Reformers and later the Free Methodists. When they left the Bolebridge Street Chapel, they met in a room nearby before acquiring a room in Aldergate that was known as ‘The Hut.’

By the late 19th century, the Free Methodists realised that the Hut did not meet the needs of a growing congregation. They bought a plot of land in Aldergate for £250. The memorial stones were laid at Easter 1886, and the building was completed late that summer, with a spire. The Gothic-style building cost £2,250 and opened for worship on 29 September 1886.

The Free Methodists became part of the United Methodists in 1907. In 1933, the United, Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist Churches became one Methodist Church, but it was many years before this became a reality in Tamworth. Meanwhile, the original spire was removed in the 1950s.

When they were joined by the Victoria Street Methodists in 1972, the new congregation in Aldergate became known as the Central Methodist Church.

But the premises in Aldergate were inadequate for the needs of the new congregation. It was impossible to extend laterally so it was decided to extend vertically, and a large part of the cost was met by grants from the Joseph Rank Benevolent Trust.

The church reopened on 16 September 1978. The front of the building was originally single storey. A mezzanine floor was added in the 1970s resulting in two storeys, while at the rear the original two-storey section was once used as school rooms. At the time of sale, the accommodation included a lobby, a vestry, a lower school room, a meeting room, two kitchens and toilets on the ground floor, a landing, the main worship room and an upper school room on the first floor.

The Central Methodist Church on Aldergate had an organ by Nicholson and Lord of Walsall (1903) that was Grade II* listed in its own right due to its quality. There were many fine monuments, memorials and features, some of which had been moved there from the Bolebridge Street Methodist Church and the Wesleyan Temple in Victoria Road when they closed.

With its spacious rooms, the church had welcomed many community groups for hold meetings and activities over 136 years. The Tamworth and District Civic Society (TDCS) was memorably re-launched there in 2015.

The former Wesleyan Temple, later Victoria Street Methodist Church, has been converted into apartments as Victoria Mews (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John Wesley (1703-1791), the founding Methodist, first visited Tamworth in 1743. Following disturbances in the Black Country, Wesley rode over to Tamworth to take legal advice from a Counsellor Littleton who lived there. However, the first visit of Methodist preachers to Tamworth was not recorded until 1771.

The early Methodists in Tamworth first met in the home of Samuel and Ann Watton and later in a room in Bolebridge Street. In 1787, John Wesley met the first Sir Robert Peel, who gave the Methodists a site for a permanchapel in Bolebridge Street. He told them: ‘My lads, do not build your chapel too large. People would like to go to a little chapel well filled better than a large one half full.’

The new chapel was opened on 15 July 1794. But it was clearly not built ‘too large,’ for by 1815 it was proving to be too small. In 1816, a new and larger chapel that could seat a congregation of 300 was built at a cost of £1,000.

But just as the first Wesleyan chapel in Bolebridge Street had proved too small, the second one also became inadequate, and in the 1870s it was decided to build a new one.

In 1877, Thomas Argyle, a Methodist solicitor, donated a plot of land for a new chapel on the corner of Victoria Road and Back Lane, now Mill Lane. The foundation stones for what would become the Wesleyan Temple were laid on 21 May 1877 and ‘topping out’ ceremony was held on 28 November 1877. The Wesleyan Temple, which opened on 9 April 1878, had an inspiring façade and could seat 650 people.

The Sunday School continued to use Bolebridge Street Chapel until new schoolrooms were built in 1898. The old chapel was sold to Woodcocks’ Printers, who used it for many years. Later, in the 1960s, the congregation at Victoria Road was joined by families from the Bolebridge Street Mission when it closed.

However, serious defects were detected at Victoria Road Methodist Church, as it became known, and the costs of remedying them were beyond the resources of the church. In early 1972, a decision was taken to close the church on Victoria Road and to amalgamate with the Methodist Church in Aldergate. The magnificent Victorian edifice of the church was preserved and at first accommodated squash courts. The inside was stripped out in 1974 and it has since been converted into residential apartments, although the façade remains part of the architectural legacy of Tamworth’s church history.

Today, there are also Methodist Churches at Glascote and Hopwas, and the ecumenical church at Saint Martin’s-in the-Delph at Stonydelph is shared between the Church of England and Methodists.

The name ‘Methodist Free Church’ and the date ‘1886’ can still be seen on the former Central Methodist Church on Aldergate in Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The lost chapel in Hopwas, stories of early Methodists and of the former ‘Hopwas Congregation’ of Catholics

The site of Saint John’s Chapel, Hopwas … now green space and a disused burial ground on Hints Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

When I was visiting Saint Chad’s Church in Hopwas in recent days, I noticed the old font in the churchyard, on the south side of the church. The font is a surviving reminder of Saint John’s Chapel, a chapel-of-ease on Hints Lane that was replaced when Saint Chad’s was built in 1879-1881, along with the bell that still tolls in Saint Chad’s Church.

I decided a few days ago to go in search of the site of Saint John’s Chapel, and found the old churchyard on Hints Lane, less than half a mile west of the Tame Otter.

This is a very small cemetery off a quiet road. A few of the gravestones are very worn, only a few of them can be read and there is no sign to describe the former churchyard. The small rectangular plot of land is surrounded by a low wall, with just a small metal gate.

Saint John’s Chapel was built as a chapel-of-ease for Tamworth parish in 1836. There are no signs to indicate that a church once stood on the site, although some of the legible gravestones indicate it continued to be used as a burial ground until the early decades of the 20th century.

The font from Saint John’s Chapel is on the south side of Saint Chad’s Church, in the churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When the Revd William MacGregor (1848-1937) was appointed Vicar of Tamworth in 1878, he gave Saint Editha’s Church a major facelift, had its bells recast, and built two churches, at Glascote and at Hopwas. He believed that Saint John’s chapel, built over 40 years earlier was too small to cater for the growing population of Hopwas. But when he sought land to build a new church, he was opposed by Sir Robert Peel who argued that the population was not large enough.

Nonetheless, MacGregor managed to secure a site for his planned church from the Revd TK Levett of Packington Hall in 1878, with additional land donated by Herbert Dean. The church was designed by John Douglas and consecrated in 1881.

The original chapel structure may have survived a little longer after the font and bell were moved up the hill to the new Saint Chad’s, for the Tamworth Herald reported on 16 April 1898 that the holy table from Saint John’s was made use of in the new workhouse chapel in Tamworth.

All that remains of Saint John’s today may be a handful of stones in among the graves in the former churchyard in the centre of the village. Even the tree planted to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th birthday has wilted and seems to have died.

Hopwas Methodist Church on Hints Lane was built in 1888 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Two other traditions, the Methodists and the Roman Catholics, have also had a long presence in Hopwas, alongside the Church of England.

Francis Wilson (1835-1917) introduced Methodism to Hopwas three months after he moved to the village in 1866. When his cottage on School Lane became too small for the growing congregation, a new chapel was built in 1888 on Hints Lane on the other side of the village, a little further west along Hints Lane. Hopwas Methodist Church has been in the heart of the village ever since.

Hopwas Methodist Church is part of the Tamworth and Lichfield Methodist Circuit, a collection of six churches in Tamworth, Lichfield, Alrewas, Hopwas, Shenstone and Stonydelph. The Revd Joanna Thornton is the Superintendent Minister, and Sunday services in Hopwas are at 10:45 am. On a fifth Sunday in the month, a joint service alternates between Hopwas Methodist Church and Saint Chad’s Church.

Hopwas Methodists met for oover 20 years in the home of Francis Wilson, from 1866 to 1888 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

In the past, Hopwas also had an interesting Roman Catholic presence. Local tradition says that Catholics in the area attended Mass in the chapel in Comberford Hall until the Comberford family moved away in 1671, although that date ought perhaps to be as late as 1718, when Catherine Comberford died.

The Catholics in the area were then served by visiting priests from Pipe Hall, the home of the Weld family, who were descended from the Comberfords through the Heveningham family, and from Oscott College. The Revd Dr John Kirk of Holy Cross, Lichfield, took charge of what was called the ‘Hopwas Congregation’ in 1801, and the congregation met in houses until 1815.

However, I have yet to identify those houses. It would be interesting if there is any continuity in that Catholic tradition between the houses used by the congregation in those years and the two houses in Hopwas still owned by Catherine Comberford when she died in 1718.

The ‘Hopwas Congregation’ of Catholics met in houses in Hopwas from 1801 until 1815 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Birch family gave a small plot of land at Coton in 1815, and Father Kirk built a small chapel. The chapel opened on 15 August 1815, when the preacher was the recently-ordained Dr Henry Weedall (1788-1859), later President of Saint Mary’s College, Oscott.

For 50 years from 1826, the Revd James Kelly was in charge of the Tamworth mission. A new church and presbytery were built in 1829-1830 ‘entirely through his exertions’, although other accounts suggest that the energetic Father Kirk also remained involved, and that the new church in Tamworth was partly endowed by John Talbot (1791-1852), 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, who lived at Alton Towers, who commissioned AWN Pugin to build many churches in Staffordshire, and who was once ‘the most prominent British Catholic of day’.

In the 1820s, Kirk also built Holy Cross Church on Upper Saint John Street, Lichfield, which was later enlarged and rebuilt in 1832 by the Lichfield-born architect Joseph Potter (1756-1842).

A piece of land in central Tamworth was acquired from Sir Robert Peel, and Kirk’s Lichfield friend Potter was commissioned to design a neoclassical church with an attached presbytery, although it is possible that the church was designed by Joseph Potter jnr.

The foundation stone was laid on Good Friday, 17 April 1829, and the church was opened on the feast of Saint John the Baptist, 24 June 1830, by Bishop Thomas Walsh (1777-1849), Vicar Apostolic for the Midland District, when a choir from Oscott College sang.

Saint John’s Church, Tamworth, was remodelled and extended and given a distinctly post-war character in 1954-1956, and its brick exterior makes it look like a 20th century church. Its story has developed quite separately from the ‘Hopwas Congregation’ that met in houses in Hopwas from 1801 to 1815, or its distant predecessor in Comberford Hall a century or more earlier.

Comberford Hall … local tradition says a Catholic congregation met in the private chapel of the Comberford family before moving to Hopwas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Brereton Methodist Church, one of the oldest Methodist churches in Staffordshire, has closed after 216 years

Brereton Methodist Church, the first church in Brereton, was built in 1809 and rebuilt in 1872 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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.

Two memorial stones marking the rebuilding of Brereton Methodist Church in 1872 (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

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.

Signs of the times … Brereton Methodist Church closed last year and the building is on the market (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Searching in Wolverton for a former hayloft on Green Lane that was once a Primitive Methodist chapel

The Primitive Methodist Chapel in Wolverton was housed in a former hayloft on Green Lane that has been converted into apartments in recent years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Wolverton once had two Methodist Churches, a Congregational Church, and Emmanuel Hall, which later developed into Wolverton Evangelical Church. The two Methodist churches in Wolverton were the Methodist Church at the east end of Church Street, which opened n 1870, and West End Primitive Methodist chapel, which opened in 1907.

But before the Primitive Methodist chapel opened in 1907, that branch of Methodism had an earlier makeshift chapel in a former hayloft on Green Lane.

Until recently, I had searched in vain in Wolverton the former scout cabin on Green Lane, originally a hayloft, that was used by the Primitive Methodists until they opened the West End chapel at the corner of Church Street and Anson Road in 1907.

But, then last week, when we were on a family visit to Wolverton, looking for a former family home where one family member had lived many decades ago, I came across the one-time Primitive Methodist premises on the other side of the street.

The founders of the Methodism, the brothers John and Charles Wesley, had some early successes when they were preaching in North Buckinghamshire, and the Wesleyans built a large number of new buildings in the area in the 19th century.

The Methodists in Wolverton at first went to the chapel Stony Stratford, founded in 1844, or met in one another’s homes. But within a few years, a reading room in Wolverton was converted for their use on Sundays and in 1870 a new Methodist church opened at the east end of Church Street.

The Wesleyan Methodist Church in Wolverton was rebuilt in 1892, to designs by the architect Ewan Harper of Birmingham. Ewan and J Alfred Harper also designed the former Methodist Central Hall in Birmingham (1900-1903). The former Methodist Church in the heart of Wolverton once had a large Sunday School and it is one of the four major Grade II listed buildings in Wolverton.

The former church was built in red brick with a three-stage square tower with a belfry, but the planned steeple was never built, although it is possible to imagine how tall it would have been what it might have looked like by careful attention to its hexagonal stone base.

Since it closed, the former Methodist Church on Church Street has suffered decades of neglect. The King’s Centre decided around 2010 or 2011 to buy and restore the building, and to use the building as the King’s Church. But the project is still waiting completion.

The Green Lane facade of the early Primitive Methodist chapel in Wolverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Meanwhile, the Primitive Methodist Church had a late start in Wolverton. The Buckingham circuit held services for a time in a photographer’s studio, but the venture soon came to an end. The Revd RW Burnett eventually bought a site on Green Lane and a hay-loft on the land became the venue for the first Primitive Methodist chapel in Wolverton.

Leading supporters of the Primitive Methodists in Wolverton included Joseph Yates of Deanshanger, who was the Buckingham circuit steward, and later the steward of the Wolverton and Stantonbury circuit; Charles T King, the senior circuit steward and a Sunday school teacher and organist in Wolverton; and JH Taylor, the circuit secretary and choirmaster.

The Primitive Methodists in Wolverton continued to worship in their chapel on Green Lane until 1907, when West End Primitive Methodist Chapel, a purpose-built chapel, was built at the corner of Church Street and Anson Road at a cost of £1,700, when the Revd Charles Herbert Spivey (1873-1954) was the superintendent minister (1903-1909). The project was supported generously by Sir William Pickles Hartley (1846-1922), founder of the Hartley’s jam company.

When the Primitive Methodists moved out of Green Lane, their former chapel on Green Lane then became a scout cabin. The upstairs room was known as ‘The Cabin’ and served as the headquarters of the Wolverton scout troop from 1916 until 1939.

It is still possible to imagine how the former Primitive Methodist chapel had once been a hayloft (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Wesleyan Methodists, the Primitive Methodists and the United Methodists came together in 1932 to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain. The former Primitive Methodist Church at the corner of Church Street and Anson Road is now West End United Church, a Local Ecumenical Partnership formed in 2005 by the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church, using the former Primitive Methodist building.

As for the former hayloft, Primitive Methodist chapel and scout cabin on Green Lane, it has been converted into apartments, and its previous functions are recalled in a commemorative plaque on the gable wall facing Green Lane.

The minister of West End United Church is the Revd Edson Dube, Superintendent Minister in the Milton Keynes Methodist Circuit. Last December, he was given a Lifetime Award for Contributions to Religion at the 2025 Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire Black Excellence Awards.

West End United Church describes itself as ‘a friendly church aiming to serve the local community and encompassing all ages. Sunday services are at 10:30 am, with junior church. The service on the second Sunday of the month is usually Holy Communion.

A commemorative plaque on the gable wall facing Green Lane recalls the former hayloft, Primitive Methodist chapel and scout cabin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The City Temple, a church on Holborn Viaduct with a reputation for having radical preachers

The City Temple on Holborn Viaduct, which has sometimes been described as ‘the nonconformist cathedral’ in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

While I was visiting a number of churches in the Holborn area of London recently, including Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn, where I was attending an event hosted by both USPG and SPCK, and Saint Etheldreda’s Church on Ely Place, I stopped for a while also at the City Temple on Holborn Viaduct, which has sometimes been described as ‘the nonconformist cathedral’ in London.

The City Temple, beside Saint Andrew Holborn, should not be confused with the Temple Church, between Fleet Street and the Embankment, a mediaeval church known to many only because it features in both The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and the film based on the book.

The church in Holborn is part of the United Reformed Church and one of the oldest Congregational churches in London, with connections with the early Puritans of the mid 16th century. It is famous for its notable preachers, pastors and theologians, especially the Revd Leslie Weatherhead, who led the church from 1936 to 1960, but also Thomas Goodwin, chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and Joseph Parker, one of the great Victorian preachers.

The City Temple traces its story back to the Puritans and Calvinists of the 1560s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The first church building on the present site in Holborn was built in 1874, but the congregation was founded much earlier. The traditional date is 1640, when the church possibly started as a nonconformist, congregational church. But evidence suggests it was founded as early as the 1560s by Puritans and Calvinists who refused to conform to the Church of England, to use with the Book of Common Prayer and wanted freedom in their approach to worship.

Throughout its history, the congregation has worshipped in many buildings in London. Since 1874, it has met in its building on Holborn Viaduct, and for long claimed to be the only historic English Free Church in the City of London worshipping in its own building every Sunday.

The City Temple is widely believed to have been founded by Cromwell’s chaplain Thomas Goodwin around 1640. It is the oldest Nonconformist congregation in the City of London, and its first meeting house was on Anchor Lane.

The second minister was Thomas Harrison, who succeeded Goodwin in 1650, when the congregation moved to a meeting house in Lime Street. Harrison remained only until 1655 and a successor was not appointed until 1658, when Thomas Mallory became the pastor. Mallory led the congregation through a difficult period after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.

The congregation moved several times until it found a more permanent home in the Poultry, Cheapside, in 1819.

When James Spence resigned as the pastor in 1867, the Poultry Chapel offered the position of pastor to Joseph Parker of Cavendish Street Chapel, Manchester, but he did not accept until 1869.

At the same time the congregation was planning to move from its site in Poultry, sold its site for £50,000, and the Poultry Chapel was closed on 16 June 1872. Parker insisted on finding a new site within the City of London and a new site was bought on Holborn Viaduct. Until the new church was ready, the congregation met in Cannon Street Hotel in the morning, in Exeter Hall in the evening, and in the Presbyterian Church, London Wall, for mid-day services on Thursdays.

The City Temple was designed by the architects Henry Francis Lockwood and William Mawson (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The new church was designed by the Bradford architects Lockwood and Mason with an elegant, classical stone-clad façade onto Holborn Viaduct, with a prominent copper cupola-clad tower, providing a glowing beacon in the local community. The Doncaster-born architect Henry Francis Lockwood (1811-1878) and the Leeds-born architect William Mawson (1828-1889) also designed some of the most distinguished buildings in Bradford, including Saint George’s Hall (1851-1852), the Venetian Gothic Wool Exchange (1864-1867), and the Continental Gothic Revival City Hall (1869-1873). They also laid out and designed the mill, model town and church at Saltaire (1851-1876), all in an Italianate Classical style. At the time, Saltaire was one of the most important examples of a philanthropic industrial and housing development in the world.

The memorial stone of the new church, to be called the City Temple, was laid by Thomas Binney (1798-1874), popularly known as the ‘Archbishop of Nonconformity’, on 19 May 1873. The Corporation of the City of London presented a marble pulpit, and the new building was dedicated on 19 May 1874. Because of its location and size, the City Temple soon came to be seen as the nonconformist cathedral, and it became the most important Congregational pulpit in Britain, mainly due to Joseph Parker’s reputation.

As Parker grew older and his health declined, the Revd Reginald John Campbell (1867-1956), a Congregational minister in Brighton, was called as his assistant in 1902. But Parker died suddenly and Campbell became his successor from 1903 to 1915.

Parker had been theologically conservative, but Campbell was a socialist politically and a supporter of the Independent Labour Party, and his theology was as radical as his politics. He introduced Biblical criticism in his preaching, and questioned the traditional authorship of books and the origins of the text.

The theology of Campbell and his friends came to be known as the ‘New Theology’ and he answered his critics in a volume called The New Theology. But Campbell came to a crisis of faith when several New Theologians began to question the deity and even the historicity of Christ.

Campbell preached his last sermon in the City Temple in October 1915 and then resigned from the Congregational Church. A few days later, he was received into the Church of England by Bishop Charles Gore in Cuddesdon, and in October 1916 he was ordained as an Anglican priest. On joining the Church of England, he wrote an account of the development of his thinking in A Spiritual Pilgrimage (1916). He was the Canon Chancellor of Chichester Cathedral when he retired in 1946 at the age of 80. His funeral was conducted by Bishop George Bell.

Campbell’s successor at the City Temple, the Revd Dr Joseph Fort Newton (1880-1950), was an American who was almost as radical theologically. He was educated at the Southern Baptist Seminary, Louisville, and Harvard, and was a theological liberal. He had been asked to the City Temple at first as a temporary appointment after Campbell's resignation, but he was opposed by the deacons and the internal divisions that ensued led to the deacons being dismissed.

Newton asked for an assistant, and the assistant finally called was Maude Royden (1876-1956), an Anglican and radical pacifist. As a woman, she had been prohibited from preaching by the Church of England.

After World War I, Newton returned to the US in 1919 and in 1926 he was ordained a deacon and priest in the Episcopal Church. He was succeeded at the City Temple by FW Norwood, an Australian Baptist who remained until 1935.

Tthe Revd Leslie Weatherhead rebuilt the City Temple after World War II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When Norwood left the City Temple, there were demands within the congregation for the appointment of a Congregationalist as pastor. In the event, however, the Revd Leslie Weatherhead (1893-1976), a Methodist minister then in Leeds, was appointed in 1936.

Weatherhead was a member of Frank Buchman’s Oxford Group from 1930 to 1939, and wrote several books reflecting the group’s values, including Discipleship and The Will of God. He was often seen as the ‘head’ of the Oxford Group in London.

The City Temple was destroyed by fire caused by German incendiary bombs during the Blitz. Weatherhead was able to continue his ministry thanks to the hospitality of a nearby Anglican church, Saint Sepulchre-without-Newgate.

Weatherhead raised the funds to rebuild the City Temple, which was redesigned by by Seely and Paget and reopened in 1958. The completed design included a new copper and sandstone clad concrete and steel-framed form, book-ended by the original surviving front and rear of the church. The City Temple has been a listed Grade II building since 1977.

Meanwhile, Despite opposition, Weatherhead was elected President of the Methodist Conference in 1955-1956. He retired in 1960 and died in 1976.

The present minister, the Revd Dr Rodney D Woods, was appointed in 2001.

The City Temple is currently completing work on a major redevelopment programme, and I was unable to visit the building, which is covered in hoarding and cladding as the work continues. Sunday services are currently taking place in the Chelsea Community Church on Edith Grove.

The City Temple is currently completing work on a major redevelopment programme (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The churches and chapels of Walsingham: 10, the Methodist Church, the oldest Methodist chapel in use in East Anglia

The Methodist Church in Walsingham is in a hidden corner off Friday Market (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Walsingham was once one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the world and was known as ‘England’s Nazareth’. Since the revival of pilgrimage to Walsingham in the past century or so, the number and variety of churches and chapels in the Norfolk village has grown, and when I was there earlier this month to speak at the Ecumenical Pilgrimage, I visited a dozen or more churches and chapels.

During the first afternoon of this month’s programme, we visited the Methodist Church in Walsingham, where we are being welcomed by Aileen Cox, a lay minister of the Methodist Church. Holy Communion was celebrated there by the Revd Dr Richard Clutterbuck, a former principal of Edgehill Theological College, Belfast, and the preacher was the Revd Dr Mark Rowland, Secretary of the Faith and Order Committee of the Methodist Church.

Catholic pilgrimages to the Slipper Chapel only began after 1897, and Anglican pilgrimages only date from the 1920s with the arrival of Rev Alfred Hope Patten, who started to rebuild the shrine in 1931. So, for over 350 years, Walsingham was what might be descried as a religious backwater without the profile it has today.

In the heartland of English Marianism, where there are places of worship belonging to the Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox traditions, it is easy to forget that Methodism was the main Christian tradition in rural Norfolk in the 18th and 19th centuries. At the 1851 census, the majority of Norfolk’s churchgoers were non-conformists, and most of them Methodists.

John Wesley visited Little Walsingham in 1781 and preached in the Common Place (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When John Wesley visited Little Walsingham in 1781, a Methodist society had already been formed in the village two years earlier in 1779, and his visit must have seemed a reward for their energy and enthusiasm.

He recorded in his Journal that he preached in the Common Place at 2 pm on Tuesday 30 October 1781 to a crowd of several thousand people. He then went to see the ruins of the Augustinian priory and Franciscan friary: ‘Had there been a grain of virtue or public spirit in Henry VIII, these noble buildings need not have run to ruin.’

A small Methodist chapel was built in the in Walsingham 1782. This later became two cottages when the present church was built in 1793-1784.

Walsingham was transferred from the huge Lynn Circuit in 1791 to a new circuit headed initially by Wells-next-the-Sea. Its name was changed to the Walsingham Circuit the following year.

The Victorian central pulpit dominates the simple table with its unusual brass candlesticks (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A site off the Friday Market at the south end of the High Street, partly on the site of the Franciscan Friary was bought and the foundation stone of a new chapel was laid on 10 June 1793. It was opened on 8 June 1794 by Charles Boon, an itinerant preacher stationed at Great Yarmouth.

It is built of red brick with a pyramid-shaped tiled roof. Its doorway was flanked by two plain columns set beneath an open triangular pediment. The design is typical of early Methodist preaching houses of the period, a large square red-brick box, with an entrance porch and a pretty gallery running around three sides of the interior.

The Victorian central pulpit dominates the simple table with its unusual brass candlesticks. The pews at ground floor level are of a heavy style favoured by the Victorians.

The organ is perched above the entrance, and the gallery is the original one from the 1790s, and still has its original pews. The organ came from the Primitive Methodist Chapel in Walsingham when it closed in the 1930s after the union of the Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist Churches.

The organ came from the Primitive Methodist Chapel when it closed in the 1930s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The exhibits on display include copies of the original religious licences granted by the bishop in order to register a place of religious worship in both Great Walsingham and Little Walsingham.

The chapel became head of the Wesleyan Methodist Walsingham Circuit in due course and a plan in 1847 of the preaching appointments for the chapel and its 33 daughter churches is on display.

Most of these neighbouring villages also had Primitive Methodist Chapels, together with many other Primitive Chapels where there was no Wesleyan presence. Meanwhile, a Primitive Methodist chapel was also built in Walsingham at Swan Entry in 1849.

The Methodist congregation in Walsingham was divided during the ‘Reform dispute,’ a mid-19th century schism that divided Wesleyan Methodism in 1849-1856, driven by demands to democratise church governance and reduce the power of ordained ministers. The congregation in Walsingham was halved in numbers, and the Wesleyan Reformers bought the former Independent of Congregational chapel in Walsingham in 1868.

The Wesleyan chapel was transferred to the East Dereham Circuit in 1887 and so was no longer head of a circuit. Extensive internal renovations took place in 1888. A new schoolroom was built by Charles Tuthill of Fakenham in 1890, and the name Friars’ Quire is a reminder of the link with the site of the Franciscan Friary.

Methodism in Norfolk was so much affected by the loss of members in the Reform dispute that its circuits were dissolved at the beginning of the 20th century and missions created. Walsingham was placed in the Mid-Norfolk Mission in 1906.

An icon of John and Charles Wesley among the exhibits in Walsingham Methodist Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

With the amalgamation Methodist traditions in the 1930s, the Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist congregations in Walsingham combined. The final services in the Primitive Methodist chapel were held on 8 October 1933, the chapel was sold and it became a house.

Today, the Methodist Church in Walsingham is the oldest Methodist chapel in East Anglia still in use for its original purpose. Indeed, if we consider Saint Mary’s and All Saints’ Church was thoroughly rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1962, then Walsingham Methodist Chapel might be said to be by far the oldest unaltered place of worship in Little Walsingham.

Although there is no regular Methodist congregation in Walsingham, it is a heritage chapel that is open to visitors on Fridays from April to October, and it also hosts school visits on a year-round basis in conjunction with Anglican Shrine. Short informal services are held on the second Sunday afternoon each month at 4:30 pm, followed by refreshments.

The Methodist Church in Walsingham, built in 1793-1784, is the oldest Methodist chapel in East Anglia still in use for its original purpose (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

How Methodists and Baptists had a variety of chapels and churches in Leighton Buzzard

Three Methodist churches or chapels in Leighton Buzzard came together to form Trinity Methodist Church on North Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I have been catching up in recent days on memories of visiting churches and chapels in Leighton Buzzard in recent months. Leighton Buzzard has a long tradition of ‘independent’ and ‘nonconformist’ churches and chapels, and once had a strong Quaker presence, which continues in the Quaker Meeting House in North Street. But the other ‘nonconformist’ traditions in the town on the borders of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire include Methodists and Baptists, and there is interesting connection between these traditions.

Leighton Buzzard once had three Methodist churches or chapels, and so it seems theologically appropriate that when they came together the new church they built should be called Trinity Methodist Church.

The Bedford Circuit Book records the first society in the town in 1801 led by Samuel Copleston. His father had been the curate in Luton when John Wesley preached there.

Although Methodists in Leighton Buzzard first met in private homes, they grew rapidly and a chapel was built on Hockliffe Street in 1804, and was dedicated in 1805. At first, Leighton Buzzard was in the Bedford Circuit, but a separate Leighton Buzzard Circuit was formed in 1812.

The chapel on Hockliffe Street was said to be an unattractive building but it was extended twice. However, each time it quickly became insufficient for the needs congregation, and it was replaced by a much larger new chapel in 1865, and the old chapel was then bought by one the Baptist groups.

The former Wesleyan Church on Hockliffe Street, Leighton Buzzard was demolished in 1969

The new Methodist chapel was further along Hockliffe Street, it was capable of seating 1,500 people. This number was exceeded on special occasions, and there was a large Sunday School too. The basement was used for classrooms and a library, and two houses or manses were built on either side of the chapel for the ministers.

The Wesleyan and Primitive Methodists united in 1932 as the Methodist Church of Great Britain and in 1960 the Wesleyans at Hockliffe Street and the Atterbury Mission Hall gave up their premises and moved into the old Primitive Methodist chapel in North Street, which was renamed as Trinity Methodist Church.

The former Wesleyan church at Hockliffe Street was subsequently sold to the council and was finally demolished in 1969. All that remained was the former right-hand manse, at the entrance to the Hockliffe Street car park. A modern office building stands where the chapel used to be, and the left-hand manse disappeared to make way for the ring road.

Meanwhile, the Primitive Methodists made several attempts to consolidate their presence in the town with regular preaching from 1837 into the early 1840s. A local society was recorded later in the 1840s. A chapel was built in Mill Road in 1851 and a new Primitive Methodist circuit based on Leighton Buzzard was formed from Aylesbury Mission in 1862.

The original chapel was replaced in 1870 with a much larger one seating 400 people. This building was plagued with problems and eventually burnt down in 1889. This was a huge set-back for the ‘Prims’, but they secured land for a new chapel on North Street, and this was in 1890, on the site of the present Trinity Methodist Church.

This new chapel cost £2,340 to build and had seating for 500 people. A residence for the minister was also built, on the north side of the chapel. The chapel later had many changes, and was enlarged in 1967, when the adjoining residence was demolished to make room for the work.

There was also a Primitive Methodist Chapel in Linslade. The Primitive Methodist Jubilee Chapel was built in 1861 at the corner of Old Road and Station Road. During World War II, the chapel was converted to an engineering works. When it was demolished housing was built on the site.

In addition to the Wesleyan and Primitive Methodists, there was also an Atterbury Mission in Leighton Buzzard. This was at a small Methodist Mission House, built in 1885, at 83 Vandyke Road. The three Methodist congregations in the town – the Wesleyans, the Primitive Methodists and the Atterbury Mission – came together in 1960 to form the present Trinity Methodist Church.

Lake Street Baptist Chapel was built in an Italianate style in 1864, closed in 1972 and was demolished in 1983

The earliest references to Baptists in Leighton Buzzard are in returns by the Vicar of All Saints. ‘Anabaptists’ are mentioned in the returns for 1706, 1709, 1717 and 1720. Forty Anabaptists were recorded in 1706, with their own meeting house. An Anabaptist meeting was being once a fortnight In 1709 with about 40 people present. By 1717, about 15 families were meeting in the home of William Fenner, in 1720 they were meeting in two houses.

The General Baptist Church in Leighton Buzzard was founded at Lake Street by seven people ca 1772-1775. When the first pastor Joseph James arrived he reported that the ‘moral state of the town was deplorable, with bull-baiting and cock-fighting abounding’. A chapel and house were soon given to the church, and baptisms took place in the River Ouzel. By 1812 The Baptists had also opened a Sunday School by 1812.

A split divided the Baptists in Leighton Buzzard in 1832 when some members were dissatisfied with the pastor and with his open communion policy, left and formed the Strict Baptist Church. The original chapel was extended in 1834, and a new chapel was built on the site of the old one in Lake Street by 1864. This new chapel was built in an Italianate style, could swet 500 people and cost £900 to build.

As for the group that split from the original church, they moved into the former Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Hockliffe Street in 1865. The Baptist Church on Hockiliffe Street was rebuilt in 1892 at a cost of £4,000 and with seating for 670 people.

The Revd John Forrest Neilson became pastor of both Lake Street and Hockliffe Street Baptist church in 1961. The Lake Street Chapel closed in 1972 and the building was demolished in 1983. The site was later developed as a residential housing estate, named Chapel Mews.

Hockliffe Street Baptist Church in Leighton Buzzard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Lecton House, beside Chapel Mews in Leighton Buzzard, is a Grade II building with many associations in the past with the town’s ‘nonconformist’ communities. It was built in 1845 as the Leighton Institute, a temperance hall. It has a Neoclassical stucco pedimented front with a tetrastyle Greek Ionic ‘pseudo portia’ and the date 1845 in Roman numerals, sash windows, panelled doors and a Welsh slate roof.

The building was financed by two local Quakers, John Dolin Bassett of Bassett’s Bank, and Hannah Grant. It served as an adult education centre and could accommodate 400 people.

The building was later transferred to a committee of 12 members of Lake Street Baptist Church, and by 1927, the Temperance Hall was owned by the trustees of Lake Street Baptist Chapel. Concerts were held there occasionally for the up-keep of the chapel, but as a Baptist building there were no whist drives or dances.

After World War II, the Temperance Hall on Lake Street was leased to the county authorities by the Baptist church trustees and in 1949 it became a branch library, with accommodation for the librarian. The library closed in 1979, when a new purpose-built library and arts centre opened on the opposite side of Lake Street. By 2009, the building was a gym or fitness centre known as Colloseum (sic). Today it is private housing.

Lecton House, beside Chapel Mews, was founded by Quakers and was later owned by the trustees of Lake Street Baptist Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

• The Revd Seung-Wook Jung, the minister in Trinity Methodist Church, is on sabbatical, and the Revd Patrick Kandeh is providing cover; Sunday services are at 10:30, Morning Worship; 4 pm, Messy Church; and 6 pm, Evening Worship. Hockiliffe Street Baptist Church is in the early stages of a process to appoint a new senior minister; Sunday services are at 10:30 and 5:30.

Sunday services in Trinity Methodist Church are at 10:30, 4 pm and 6 pm (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Aylesbury Methodist Church, dismissed by Pevsner for its ‘terrible Italianate style’, is an active and inclusive church

Aylesbury Methodist Church and Centre on Buckingham Street, Aylesbury (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

I regularly stop in Aylesbury when I am changing buses between Buckingham or Stony Stratford and Oxford, and enjoy strolling through the county town of Buckinghamshire, taking in its churches, buildings and streets, even stopping for lunch.

One of the churches I visited recently is the Methodist Church on Buckingham Street, designed by James Weir in 1893 and described dismissively by the architectural historian Sir Niklaus Pevsner as being built in a ‘terrible Italianate style’.

Methodism in Aylesbury began with early meetings in the late 1700s, with licenses granted for private homes, including John Hester’s home at Walton House and John Seamons’s house in Weedon.

Evening services in the town of Aylesbury itself began in 1789, a room in the house of Mrs Martha King in Cambridge Street was registered as a place of worship in November 1802, and a formal Methodist society was formed by 1805, with about 25 members.

Aylesbury was in the Oxford Circuit until 1810, when the Whitchurch Circuit was formed, with a second preacher appointed to it two years later. The Wesleyan Methodists met in rented rooms in Castle Street, Aylesbury, from 1816 and Aylesbury replaced Whitchurch as the circuit church in 1821.

But the rooms in Castle Street remained in use until 1839, when what was described as 'a commodious chapel and schoolroom' was built on a site leased from the Duke of Buckingham in the Friarage Passage, which ran through the site of a 14th century friary.

Aylesbury Methodist Church, built as the Wesleyan Church in 1893, was designed by James Weir (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A new chapel opened in Buckingham Street in 1893, replacing the chapel in Friarage Passage. The new chapel was designed by James Weir (1845-1905), a Methodist architect who mainly designed Wesleyan Methodist churches in London and the south-east.

Weir was articled to the architect George Devey from 1859 to 1864, and remained as an assistant of Devey for a further five years. He then became an assistant to Richard Norman Shaw.

Weir set up his own independent practice in 1873, and became of Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1882. At the start of his independent career in 1873, Weir was commissioned to design a new Wesleyan Church in Clapham. He went on to design 28 more chapels in London and the south-east.

Most of Weir’s chapels were in the Gothic style, but a few, such as Hinde Street Methodist Church in Marylebone, were in the classical style. Towards the end of his life, Weir designed Victoria Central Hall in Deptford (1903) and Stepney Central Hall (1907).

For many years, Weir was also the architect to the Victoria Chambers Company in Westminster, where he had his offices, and to the Westinghouse Brake Company in King’s Cross, London.

Perhaps Pevsner’s description of Weir’s church in Aylesbury as having a ‘terrible Italianate style’ is a little harsh, as the church also displays not only Italianate features but also some Byzantine and Romanesque features.

The Buckingham Street church underwent major refurbishment in 2009 and reopened as the Aylesbury Methodist Church and Centre, and is now the hub of the Vale of Aylesbury Methodist Circuit. It is an active, inclusive town centre church and the largest in the Vale of Aylesbury Circuit, with extensive meeting venues and charity work, hosting many community and charitable groups.

As for the former Methodist chapel in Friarage Passage, it was later used as the Comrades (Ex-Services) Club before being demolished as part of the shopping centre development.

Aylesbury also had a Primitive Methodist Chapel in New Street, reflecting the old split in Methodism between ‘Prims’ and Wesleyans. It stood opposite the former Royal Bucks Hospital, and remained until the 1960s.

• The Revd Richard Atkinson is the minister at Aylesbury Methodist Church. Sunday services and Sunday school are at 10:30.

Aylesbury Methodist Church was refurbished in 2009 and reopened as the Aylesbury Methodist Church and Centre (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)