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For the Record: 1821-1999 Chapel Era

The building was a Chapel from 1821 to 1999

Slaidburn Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was built in 1821 by public subscription and held its final service in 1999 when lack of support led to its closure and sale.

The Chapel was originally built at the instigation of Isabella (Bella) Spencer, who with the support of her family, encouraged others to give of their time, money, goods and labour to create a place of worship.

One person gave the stone for the building, another promised to cart the stone for nothing, another would bring lime and sand without charge.

The Methodist Sunday School banner proudly paraded outside the Church.

Personal sacrifice and individual fund-raising was recorded. One woman gathered wool and knitted 3 pairs of stockings for her share, another gave her rhubarb crop for a year. A farmer gave a weeks supply of butter, another a sheep, someone a calf and a boy dedicated his hatched chickens to the fund.

The Chapel was completed and the day of opening fixed in 1821. It was registered as a meeting place in 1822.

The entire cost of construction was £182-5s-3d and the facades that have been retained in the new village hall show that it was properly built unlike the adjoining house which was found to be unsafe and had to be demolished when the hall was built.

In 1889 the Chapel was enlarged and renovated, a two storey schoolroom, accommodation and a gallery behind the pulpit were added. Modern pews replaced the old box pews.

The Chapel continued to be an important part of the religious life of the village for over 170 years until 1999 when it closed as a place of worship. A dwindling number of worshippers, the economics of maintaining the Chapel and a visiting Minister, led to a centralised decision by the Methodist Church to close the Chapel and sell the building. This action was taken against the wishes of the residual congregation and the Chapel Stewards, who did all they could to retain a Wesleyan place of worship in the village.

The original trustees were cloggers, labourers, farmers and a grocer, some with surnames that are still familiar, eg. Bleazard, Slinger, Walker and Brown. By 1965 the trustees were; Tom Cowking, W J Harrison, Ted Raw, Peggy Starkie, Hartley Kinder, John Hodgson, J Robinson, Robert Wooff and John Sanderson. Later trustees included: William Winder, Lily Hodgson, Peggy Starkie, F Mason, George Kinder, J Sanderson, Ernest Harrison, Jenny Mason, Eric Whitfield and G Sanderson.

Membership of well over 30 was not unusual until support started to dwindle after the 1960’s until at one stage in 1995 there were no members at all.
Over the years several attempts were made to get the Chapel listed but the Department of Culture Media and Sport together with its predecessors consistently ruled that the building was not of listable quality even though it was a much loved integral part of the gateway to a conservation village.

With the author’s kind permission, many of the historical facts and the silhouette of Isabella Spencer have been reproduced from a book written by Chris Spencer, a direct descendant of Isabella, entitled “A history of Methodism in Slaidburn and the WESLEYAN Methodist Chapel”. 

Further information is available from the book, at Slaidburn Heritage Centre, Church Street, Slaidburn (phone 01200 446161).