Middle Lane Wesleyan Methodist church was founded in 1873, with help from the new Highgate circuit. The iron Trinity church in Hornsey High Street was temporarily used until the opening of a brick building at the corner of Middle Lane and Lightfoot Road in 1886. It seated 1,000 but was demolished in 1975 and replaced by one of red brick and concrete, seating 200.
Shortly after the foundation of Methodism by John Wesley, he concluded that he needed a permanent base from which to preach and convert. He founded a chapel to the east of the City of London, but this soon fell in to disrepair. In 1778 he built a new and more permanent chapel on the City Road, which still stands today. Wesley's Chapel has been altered in some ways but was restored after a major fund raising campaign in the 1970s, and re-opened in 1978 in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh.
Wesley's House was built by Wesley in 1779. It was Wesley's winter home and also provided a home for the preachers of the Chapel, their families and servants. The house is now open to visitors and contains many of John Wesley's belongings and furniture, including his electrical machine, his study chair and his small Prayer Room.
The Museum of Methodism was opened in 1984 in the Crypt of Wesley's Chapel. It tells the history of Methodism from John Wesley to the present day.
Epworth Hall is located in Helston, Cornwall. It was constructed in 1798 as a Wesleyan Methodist meeting hall and was named 'Epworth' after Wesley's birthplace in Lincolnshire.
The Methodist Church in Britain is arranged into over 600 Circuits, which in turn are grouped into 32 Districts covering Great Britain, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Each District is supervised by a District Synod. The London North East District of the Methodist Church includes various missions, chapels and circuits in London and surrounding counties, including Whitechapel, Poplar, Bow, Hackney, Stoke Newington, East Ham, Finsbury Park and Southgate, Tottenham, Enfield, Waltham Abbey and Hertford, Wanstead and South Woodford, Walthamstow and Chingford, Leytonstone and Forest Gate, Ilford, Harlow, Bishop's Stortford, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Romford, Grays, Southend-on-Sea, Leigh-on-Sea, Basildon, Chelmsford, Colchester, Manningtree and Harwich, and Clacton-on-Sea. Institutions belonging to this District include Wesley's Chapel, City Road; Wesley House; The Leys School, Cambridge; Queen Victoria's Seamen's Rest and the National Children's Home.
The Teddington Methodist Circuit comprises the churches at Teddington, Sunbury, East Molesey, Hampton and Hanworth. These were originally part of the Richmond Circuit, but in 1887 were removed to form the new Hampton Court Circuit. This became known as the Teddington Circuit in 1892. A circuit is normally a group of churches in a local area served by a team of ministers. A minister will have pastoral charge of one or more churches, but will preach and lead worship in different local churches in the circuit, along with local preachers. The arrangements for leading worship in a circuit are drawn up in a quarterly Plan.
A Primitive Methodist chapel was opened in Welldon Crescent, Greenhill, in 1904. The church has closed and the buildings are now used as a community centre.
Trinity church, Wood Green, had its origins in open-air services which had begun in 1864. In 1869 a site on the north side of Southgate (later Trinity) Road was purchased and a chapel was constructed, dedicated in 1872. The building was designed by the Reverend J. N. Johnson, a steward of the Highbury circuit; it was of greyish brick with stone dressings, in the Early English style. A new school was built to the rear of the chapel in 1880, and in 1900 three halls were opened. In 1903, with nearly 700 worshippers on Sunday morning and 800 in the evening, there was a larger attendance than at any other nonconformist church in Tottenham or Wood Green. The former Baptist chapel of Saint George, Bowes Park (Edmonton), was placed under the care of Trinity church, and was eventually purchased by the Methodists in 1901. Trinity church itself was sold to the Greek Orthodox Church in 1970.
Source: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 5.
Highgate or Jackson's Lane Wesleyan Methodist church was opened in 1905, on a site at the corner of Archway Road. The building included a Sunday school and was designed by W. H. Boney of Highgate. The church seated 650 and the schoolroom 400. Jackson's Lane was well known during the 1960s for its counselling centre. The church was closed in 1976.
Acton Green Wesleyan Methodist church originated in meetings held in a house in Antrobus Road. In 1885 a chapel and school were constructed in Steele Road, Acton Green. This church was rebuilt in 1930 on the same site by Smee and Houchin in the style of the Methodist Central Halls at Westminster. The new building had two halls, classrooms, vestry, and others rooms split over two levels.
The College Park Primitive Methodist chapel was built in 1897 at the corner of Harrow Road and Victor Road, College Park. It was closed in 1958.
Harlesden United Methodist Church was founded in 1869. Since September 1932 it has been called Harlesden Methodist Church. It was damaged by enemy action in 1941, and rebuilt in the 1950s on its present site.
Willesden Green Primitive Methodist chapel was opened in the High Road, Willesden Green by 1897. The church was rebuilt in 1904 but closed in 1963.
The first Methodist Chapel in Harrow was established at London Hill, Roxeth, by 1809. A new chapel in Lower Road was opened in 1855. This building subsequently became the Welsh Church. In 1905 the Methodist congregation moved to larger premises in Bessborough Road, Harrow.
The Old Mahogany Bar Methodist Church was originally a music hall - Wilton's Music Hall, founded in 1858. The Reverend Peter Thompson bought the premises in 1888 and converted them into a Methodist Mission hall as part of the East End Mission. Various evangelical and social welfare activities were coordinated by the Church, including a Sunday School, Women's Meetings, clubs and a Guild. In 1956 the building was sold and became a rag warehouse. The building has been Grade II listed and is being restored by the Wilton's Music Hall Trust.
The Primitive Methodist Connexion chapel in Manchester Road was founded in 1862 as a two storey building, was a church above and a school below. It was part of the London Eighth Circuit. Primitive Methodist Connexion chapels were more laity led in contrast to Wesleyan Methodists where the Ministers had greater power.
Wandsworth Circuit was created in 1864 out of the old Hammersmith Circuit. It comprised churches in Putney, Wandsworth High Street and Wandsworth Bridge Road. In 1951 it was renamed the Wandsworth and Fulham circuit and was joined by Methodist churches in Munster Park and Fulham. In 1968 a new church was opened in Roehampton. The circuit closed in 1969 and the constituent churches redistributed to the Hammersmith, Richmond and Hounslow, and Broomwood and Clapham circuits
Wandsworth Bridge Road Church, Fulham closed in 1968.
Goodwyn Avenue Wesleyan Methodist Church, a brick building in the Perpendicular style, was opened in Mill Hill in 1930. After the Second World War a hall was added at the rear. The Church is now closed.
Methodist services and a Sunday school were said to have been started in the coach-houses of Harefield Grove House, at that time belonging to Robert Barnes, a former Mayor of Manchester. Barnes built the church in 1864 and maintained a resident minister there. On his departure from Harefield in 1869 he offered the building to the Wesleyan Methodist authorities, whose property it became in 1871. The church hall was opened in 1906, but after the First World War the congregation declined in numbers. The Second World War brought evacuees to the village causing a slight increase, but in 1959 the chapel had no resident minister and was largely dependent on lay preachers. The Chapel is now closed.
From: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3: Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell, Sunbury, Teddington, Heston and Isleworth, Twickenham, Cowley, Cranford, West Drayton, Greenford, Hanwell, Harefield and Harlington (1962), pp. 256.
The New Chapel, or as it later became known, Wesley's Chapel, was opened for public worship on 1 November 1778. It stood as a successor to the old Foundery Chapel bought in 1739 which was situated a few hundred metres to the south east.
The Chapel is important as the "Mother Church of World Methodism", the scene of many famous events such as the Uniting Conference of Primitive Methodists, United Methodists and Wesleyan Methodists in 1932. It also acts as the focal point of the City Road Circuit, also known as London East Circuit (1807-1823) and the First London Circuit. There has been much reorganisation as chapels closed and circuits were altered; for further details and names and dates of circuits, contact the Society of Cirplanologists who collect Circuit plans.
The Church is now disused. It was originally a Wesleyan Methodist Church in the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell. From 1965 it was in the London Borough if Southwark. It was in the Registration District of Camberwell. From 26 June 1972 the Congregation moved to Red Post Hill, North Dulwich and was renamed St Faith's Anglican/Methodist Shared Church. Marriage ceremonies continued to be conducted according to the rites and ceremonies of the Methodist Church. The Anglican parish church of St Faith, Red Post Hill continues to hold its services, and its registers are in the care of the incumbent.
The Denbigh Road Methodist Church was founded in 1823 and built in 1856. The Lancaster Road Methodist Church was built in 1879. The two institutions subsequently merged and are now called the Notting Hill Methodist Church. The Church is based on Lancaster Road while the old Denbigh Road premises are used by the church as the Etheline Holder Hall.
Methodist services and a Sunday school were said to have been started in the coach-houses of Harefield Grove House, at that time belonging to Robert Barnes, a former Mayor of Manchester. Barnes built the church in 1864 and maintained a resident minister there. On his departure from Harefield in 1869 he offered the building to the Wesleyan Methodist authorities, whose property it became in 1871. The church hall was opened in 1906, but after the First World War the congregation declined in numbers. The Second World War brought evacuees to the village causing a slight increase, but in 1959 the chapel had no resident minister and was largely dependent on lay preachers. The Chapel is now closed.
From: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3: Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell, Sunbury, Teddington, Heston and Isleworth, Twickenham, Cowley, Cranford, West Drayton, Greenford, Hanwell, Harefield and Harlington (1962), pp. 256.
Wesleyan Methodists registered a preaching hall in Upton Road (later part of Belsize Road) from 1861 to 1870. This may have been a forerunner of the Quex Road Methodist Church. The Church was built by Wesleyan Methodists on a site bought in 1868, and was registered in 1870. Attendance in 1886 was 356 for morning service and 400 for evening service; in 1903 attendance was 282 for morning service and 409 in the evening. A Church Hall was built in 1905. The Church was replaced in 1975 with small block of flats in Quex Road and a 2-storeyed church was built in Kingsgate Road.
From: 'Hampstead: Protestant Nonconformity', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 9: Hampstead, Paddington (1989), pp. 153-158.
Plumstead Methodist Central Hall opened in 1905 on Plumstead High Street.
Harrow Methodist Circuit is now Harrow and Hillingdon Methodist Circuit of 17 churches, covering the London Boroughs of Hillingdon and Harrow and stretching from West Drayton and Hayes in the South to Kenton and Wealdstone in the North. A Methodist circuit is normally a group of churches in a local area served by a team of ministers. A minister will have pastoral charge of one or more churches, but will preach and lead worship in different local churches in the circuit, along with local preachers. The arrangements for leading worship in a circuit are drawn up in a quarterly Plan.
For histories of the individual churches in ACC/3393 please see the sub-fonds record for each church (ACC/3393/BR, ACC/3393/CA and so on).
A Wesleyan Methodist chapel was first erected in 1810 on the eastern side of Lower Road, Roxeth, and accommodated 218 people. The chapel was registered in 1856, but was replaced in 1905 by a red brick Gothic building, with room for 650, in Bessborough Road. The chapel was closed in 1972 and the congregation joined theNorth Harrow Methodist Church.
Harrow Methodist Circuit is now Harrow and Hillingdon Methodist Circuit of 17 churches, covering the London Boroughs of Hillingdon and Harrow and stretching from West Drayton and Hayes in the South to Kenton and Wealdstone in the North. A Methodist circuit is normally a group of churches in a local area served by a team of ministers. A minister will have pastoral charge of one or more churches, but will preach and lead worship in different local churches in the circuit, along with local preachers. The arrangements for leading worship in a circuit are drawn up in a quarterly Plan.
The Leysian Mission was founded in 1886 as a large Wesleyan Methodist settlement and mission by past and present scholars of the Leys School, Cambridge. The work started in Whitecross Street, moved to 12 Errol Street in 1890, and then moved in 1904 to the new headquarters building in City Road, Finsbury. This striking building of terracotta bricks and red granite, costing £124,000, was designed by Messrs Bradshaw and Gass. The Queen Victoria Hall seated 2,000 persons and the building itself accommodated 125 rooms and four roof gardens for settlement purposes, with commercial premises at street frontage level.
At the opening of the building by the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1904, Lord Strathcona described the object of the mission as two-fold "to bring religious and ameliorative influences to bear upon the lives of toilers in one of the most crowded districts in London" and "to give to those who have enjoyed the privilege of a public school education the opportunity of coming into direct and sympathetic contact with the social problems that appeal for their solution to the Christian Church and to all good citizens at large".
The Circuit included Haggerston Methodist Mission, Brownlow Street and Shoreditch Methodist Mission, Nichols Square, Hackney Road. The Leysian Mission closed in 1989 and the congregation united with Wesley's Chapel, City Road to form Wesley's Chapel and Leysian Centre.
Ruislip Common Chapel was built in 1854 and taken over for use by a Methodist congregation in 1882. It is now closed.
Hugh Price Hughes a Wesleyan Minister in London founded the West London Mission in 1887 as part of the Forward Movement in Methodism which stressed that faith had to be expressed in social and political as well as personal life. The Inaugural meeting of the then West Central Mission was on 21st October 1887 with the Sermon at St. James' Hall, Piccadilly preached by C.H. Spurgeon. The West London Mission remained at St. James' Hall which was a popular Concert Hall, until 1905 when it was demolished to form the Piccadilly Hotel. The Mission moved to Exeter Hall, another concert hall, in the Strand.
In 1906 the Methodist Conference gave the Mission its own building, the Wesleyan Chapel at Great Queen Street. The building was later condemned by the LCC and the Mission were temporarily housed in the Lyceum Theatre, while on Great Queen Street at the old site a new place of worship, Kingsway Hall, was under construction. Kingsway Hall opened in 1912 and enjoyed nearly 70 years of occupation until it was sold in the eighties after the amalgamation of the Kingsway Circuit and Hinde Street; the Mission returned to the West End to Thayer Street/Hinde Street.
In the early days, much of the day to day work went on in smaller chapels and halls in the middle of slum areas where social needs were great. These buildings such as Craven Hall at Fouberts Place were used for a wide variety of activities not just devotional but social, education and welfare. However, this use of smaller halls was dropped after the First World War in favour of the new Kingsway Hall premises.
The Warwick Gardens Methodist Chapel was built in 1863 to designs by Lockwood and Mawson and demolished in about 1927. It represented a movement by local Wesleyans to broaden their scope and, in William Pepperell's words, 'plant chapels in more respectable localities, such as that of Warwick-gardens'.
The initiative came from the Bayswater Circuit of the Methodist Conference, to which the chapel was formally attached. It appears that there was a competition for the building, probably in mid 1862. The foundation stone for Lockwood and Mawson's chapel was laid in May 1863. The prominent site, at the south corner of Pembroke Gardens and Warwick Crescent (now Gardens), was taken from Lord Kensington on a long lease. The exterior, Geometric in style, was of red brick with black bands and Bath stone dressings, and had aisles, a high roof, and a slim tower and spire in the south-west position. Inside was a timber arcade and the usual array of galleries, while in a semi-basement were schoolrooms 'and a residence for the chapel-keeper'.
The finished chapel, opened on 10 December 1863, contained some 1,100 sittings. But Pepperell reported in 1871 that an average congregation amounted to some 200 only, and 'a number of these are from a distance, and properly belonging to other Methodist congregations'. The Reverend C Maurice Davies, visiting a few years later, offered a livelier impression. 'There was generally a shiny look about the chapel, as though everything, including the congregation, had been newly varnished. The seats were low, the galleries retiring, and everything in the most correct ecclesiastical taste. The position of the pulpit was strange to me; and the addition of a table covered with red baize surmounted by a small white marble font with a chamber towel ready for use, did not diminish the peculiarity. . . . The pulpit had succeeded in attaining the "Eastward position", but the table at its base did very well for a quasi-altar, and was flanked, north and south, by two semi-ecclesiastical hall chairs of oak. The font was locomotive, and might be supposed to occupy its abnormal position under protest.'
Pepperell's forebodings may have been accurate, for the chapel never attained much prosperity or influence. In about 1925 it was closed, its site sold to the Prudential Assurance Company, and shortly afterwards houses were built upon the site.
From: 'Churches and chapels: Non-Anglican denominations', Survey of London: volume 42: Kensington Square to Earl's Court (1986), pp. 386-394.
The New Chapel, or as it later became known, Wesley's Chapel, was opened for public worship on 1 November 1778. It stood as a successor to the old Foundery Chapel bought in 1739 which was situated a few hundred metres to the south east.
The Chapel is important as the "Mother Church of World Methodism", the scene of many famous events such as the Uniting Conference of Primitive Methodists, United Methodists and Wesleyan Methodists in 1932. It also acts as the focal point of the City Road Circuit, also known as London East Circuit (1807-1823) and the First London Circuit. There has been much reorganisation as chapels closed and circuits were altered; for further details and names and dates of circuits, contact the Society of Cirplanologists who collect Circuit plans.
The North Bow Primitive Methodist Church was founded in 1878. It was one of two in the London Mission, although by the 1920s it was in the East London Mission, under the Metropolitan Mission. It closed in 1933.
Gospel Oak Methodist Church on Agincourt Road originated in 1875 in Wesleyan Methodist meetings held in Lismore Circus, Gospel Oak. The meetings were recognized as a mission in 1877 and placed under the control of the Prince of Wales Road church. A site at the corner of Lisburne Road and Agincourt Road was bought but only a school was built at first. A permanent church building opened in 1900. In 1940 the Grafton Road Methodist Church was amalgamated with the Gospel Oak church. The need to carry out building repairs brought about a union with the Prince of Wales Road Methodist Church at the Gospel Oak site in 1965. The church was duly demolished in 1970 and the new building opened in 1971.
Source: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 9: Hampstead, Paddington (1989), pp. 153-158.
Brunswick Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was situated on Three Colt Street, Limehouse. The building was sold to the London County Council in 1965.
The Spitalfields Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was situated at the corner of Church Street (now Fournier Street) and Brick Lane, Spitalfields. The building was constructed in 1743 for a Huguenot congregation. In 1819 the lease passed to the Wesleyan Methodists, who remained in the building until 1897. The building was subsequently used as a synagogue and then a mosque.
The Methodist Archives and Research Centre (MARC) was established by the Methodist Church of Great Britain in 1961 to house the Connexional records of the Church. The Centre was originally located at John Wesley's Chapel, City Road, London, but in 1977 it was transferred to the John Rylands University Library of Manchester. At this date records specific to London were transferred to the London Metropolitan Archives.
A Methodist circuit is normally a group of churches in a local area served by a team of ministers. A minister will have pastoral charge of one or more churches, but will preach and lead worship in different local churches in the circuit, along with local preachers. The arrangements for leading worship in a circuit are drawn up in a quarterly Plan.
The Methodist Church in Britain is arranged into over 600 Circuits, which in turn are grouped into 32 Districts covering Great Britain, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Each District is supervised by a District Synod.
The Ilford Circuit was part of the London North-East District. It later became the Barking and Ilford Circuit.
The Mary Street Methodist Church, Canning Town, ceased to be used on account of enemy action on 10 May 1941. It was originally a Primitive Methodist Church, in the former West Ham Circuit. It later became part of the Bow Circuit.
A Wesleyan Methodist church was first built in Poplar on Hale Street in 1807. In 1848 the congregation moved to a new, larger church on East India Dock Road. In 1886 new classrooms and a lecture hall were added to the church. The East India Dock Road church became the headquarters of the Poplar Wesleyan Mission (later the Poplar Methodist Mission). The Methodist Church missions in the East End of London aimed to combat the poverty and squalor of this area with a combination of evangelism and social work. The church was badly damaged by enemy action during the Second World War but was repaired and was used until 1976, when it was closed and the Mission transferred to the former Trinity Congregational Church on the same street.
Islington Central Methodist Church was also known as Islington Central Hall. It was built in 1929 to replace Wesleyan Methodist churches at Drayton Park, Highbury and Liverpool Road, Islington. The first minister was the Reverend Donald Soper who was there between 1929 and 1936. Soper cleared the Church of debt, developed children's cinema, organized breakfasts for 500 each Christmas morning, and sponsored concerts and variety evenings. He also founded a centre where unemployed men could barter their skills. The Church left the London Central Mission Circuit in 1938 and in 1941 united with Archway Central Hall to form the London Mission North Circuit. The church was closed in 1953 and the work transferred to the Albany Mission, Hornsey Road, which was itself replaced by Islington Central Methodist Church, Palmers Place in 1963.
King's Cross Central Methodist Mission, Crestfield Street was opened in 1825 on Chesterfield Street by the Wesleyan Methodists as Battle Bridge Church. It was renamed as King's Cross Church in 1836 and was initially part of the Second London Circuit/Great Queen Street Circuit. In 1904 it transferred to the Prince of Wales Road Circuit, then in 1921 to the West London Mission Circuit. In 1937 Chesterfield Street was re-named Crestfield Street. In 1945 the Church transferred to the London Central Mission Circuit, then in 1960 to the London Mission (North) Circuit.
The Penton Hall Methodist Church was opened on Penton Street by Wesleyan Methodists in 1866. In 1872 the congregation moved to Twyford Street and renamed the church Twyford Hall Methodist Church. Both churches belonged to the Islington Circuit. The church was closed in 1890.
Methodism was established in the Highgate and Hornsey region in the early nineteenth century. It expanded alongside housing in the area and more churches were constructed. These churches belonged to the Islington Circuit until 1873, when the Highgate Circuit was established.
The Hornsey Road Methodist Church was a Wesleyan Methodist foundation.
The Kentish Town circuit appears to have been formed after the division of the Great Queen Street Circuit in around 1866. It served churches in the Kentish Town and Camden area.
Hugh Price Hughes a Wesleyan Minister in London founded the West London Mission in 1887 as part of the Forward Movement in Methodism which stressed that faith had to be expressed in social and political as well as personal life. The Inaugural meeting of the then West Central Mission was on 21st October 1887 with the Sermon at St. James' Hall, Piccadilly preached by C.H. Spurgeon. The West London Mission remained at St. James' Hall which was a popular Concert Hall, until 1905 when it was demolished to form the Piccadilly Hotel. The Mission moved to Exeter Hall, another concert hall, in the Strand.
In 1906 the Methodist Conference gave the Mission its own building, the Wesleyan Chapel at Great Queen Street. The building was later condemned by the LCC and the Mission were temporarily housed in the Lyceum Theatre, while on Great Queen Street at the old site a new place of worship, Kingsway Hall, was under construction. Kingsway Hall opened in 1912 and enjoyed nearly 70 years of occupation until it was sold in the eighties after the amalgamation of the Kingsway Circuit and Hinde Street; the Mission returned to the West End to Thayer Street/Hinde Street.
In the early days, much of the day to day work went on in smaller chapels and halls in the middle of slum areas where social needs were great. These buildings such as Craven Hall at Fouberts Place were used for a wide variety of activities not just devotional but social, education and welfare. However, this use of smaller halls was dropped after the First World War in favour of the new Kingsway Hall premises.
Since its beginning the West London Mission has been involved with social work. One of its first services offered was a Crèche. There were also job registries and men's social department catering for the unemployed, dispensaries and free surgeries, a poor man's lawyer service, a Home of Peace for the Dying, a home for homeless girls - The Winchester House, and a clothing store. In the 1920s and 1930s the social work of the West London Mission expanded. They set up hostels for abandoned mothers and for girls in London without jobs and in 1923 a Mission Maternity Hospital was established. The Social work continued and now includes St. Luke's and St. Mary's Hostels for men and women, Emerson Bainbridge House for young offenders and the Katherine Price Hughes house set up in 1937 and which now provides accommodation for men and women on probation and bail.
Another aspect of the work of the Mission was Open Air Ministry. There were open air services on the streets every evening and in Hyde Park on Sundays which included the Mission brass band. One of the most well known open air preachers was the Reverend Lord Donald Soper whose outdoor work began in 1927 at Tower Hill and in 1942 at Speakers' Corner.
The Mission now has its home at 19 Thayer Street.
The first small group of Methodists in Southgate joined together for worship at a cottage in Chelmsford Road in 1885. The group soon outgrew their first meeting place and moved in turn to a baker's shop, a marquee, an old corrugated iron building called the Iron Chapel and, in 1891, the Wesleyan Chapel on Chase Side (near present day St Andrew's). By the early 1920s, Southgate was changing from village to suburb with the coming of the Southgate tube station, and plans were made to move the church to a still larger site on Bourne Hill.
October 1929 saw the congregation's first worship service in its new location. Southgate Methodist Church became known locally as The Bourne Methodist Church due to its location and to distinguish it from New Southgate Methodist Church in Barnet. The rapidly expanding Sunday School meant that new rooms were built in 1937. The two-storey building of Martin Luther and St Augustine halls opened in 1956 and has since housed a wide variety of church and community activities.
In the 1990s a major redevelopment scheme modernised the worship facilities and provided greatly improved premises now constantly in use by the church and community for worship, study, relaxation, meetings, and activities. The church is part of the Enfield Circuit.
Hugh Price Hughes, a Wesleyan Minister in London, founded the West London Mission in 1887 as part of the Forward Movement in Methodism which stressed that faith had to be expressed in social and political as well as personal life. The Inaugural meeting of the then West Central Mission was on 21st October 1887 with the Sermon at St. James' Hall, Piccadilly preached by C.H. Spurgeon. The West London Mission remained at St. James' Hall which was a popular Concert Hall, until 1905 when it was demolished to form the Piccadilly Hotel. The Mission moved to Exeter Hall, another concert hall, in the Strand.
In 1906 the Methodist Conference gave the Mission its own building, the Wesleyan Chapel at Great Queen Street. The building was later condemned by the LCC and the Mission were temporarily housed in the Lyceum Theatre, while on Great Queen Street at the old site a new place of worship, Kingsway Hall, was under construction. Kingsway Hall opened in 1912 and enjoyed nearly 70 years of occupation until it was sold in the eighties after the amalgamation of the Kingsway Circuit and Hinde Street; the Mission returned to the West End to Thayer Street/Hinde Street.
In the early days, much of the day to day work went on in smaller chapels and halls in the middle of slum areas where social needs were great. These buildings such as Craven Hall at Fouberts Place were used for a wide variety of activities not just devotional but social, education and welfare. However, this use of smaller halls was dropped after the First World War in favour of the new Kingsway Hall premises.
Since its beginning the West London Mission has been involved with social work. One of its first services offered was a Crèche. There were also job registries and men's social department catering for the unemployed, dispensaries and free surgeries, a poor man's lawyer service, a Home of Peace for the Dying, a home for homeless girls - The Winchester House, and a clothing store. In the 1920s and 1930s the social work of the West London Mission expanded. They set up hostels for abandoned mothers and for girls in London without jobs and in 1923 a Mission Maternity Hospital was established. The Social work continued and now includes St. Luke's and St. Mary's Hostels for men and women, Emerson Bainbridge House for young offenders and the Katherine Price Hughes house set up in 1937 and which now provides accommodation for men and women on probation and bail.
The Welsh Methodist Church was situated on Chiltern Street, Marylebone.
A Methodist place of worship was first registered in the Tottenham area in 1765. Numbers grew slowly until a period of rapid expansion in the 1860s which encouraged the building of new chapels. The original 1765 chapel was rebuilt on a larger scale in 1867 and an ambitious construction project - to build 50 new chapels - was begin in Wood Green in 1871. In 1896 Tottenham became the head of a large circuit stretching from Seven Sisters Road to Cheshunt and had one of the most active communities in North London. A circuit is normally a group of churches in a local area served by a team of ministers. A minister will have pastoral charge of one or more churches, but will preach and lead worship in different local churches in the circuit, along with local preachers. The arrangements for leading worship in a circuit are drawn up in a quarterly Plan.