The Staines and Feltham Circuit includes churches in Staines, Feltham, Ashford, Egham, Virginia Water and Englefield Green. 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.
Yiewsley Methodist Church moved in 1927 to Central Hall, Fairfield Road, which replaced an older building used since 1873 by the small Primitive Methodist Congregation. Central Hall was extended and renovated in 1959. In 1969, the site was redeveloped to include a smaller church, which opened in 1973. During the redevelopment services were held in a temporary church.
It would appear that from 1859 Wesleyans were meeting for worship at a coffee house and dining rooms in Whittington Terrace, Upper Holloway. The society acquired its own premises when in 1864 a site was purchased in St John's Road and an iron building erected upon it. This was the site later occupied by the Archway Central Hall. In 1873 a far more substantial chapel was opened on the adjacent site - on the junction of five roads opposite the Archway Tavern, since Victorian times one of the busiest traffic centres in North London. Up to that point still part of the Islington (Liverpool Road) Circuit, Archway Road Chapel became the head of the newly formed Highgate Circuit (1873), which reached out to the new suburbs rapidly growing up on the Northern Heights.
Archway was one of no less than 85 Wesleyan chapels built in 1872. In 1932 it was decided to replace the crumbling, out of date building with a large Central Hall, to be set back from the busy and noisy Great North Road. It was to be the first central hall scheme initiated after Methodist Union and the last Central Hall built in London.
Ponders End Wesleyan Methodist Church began when a chapel was built in 1849. In 1892, another chapel was built on the western side of High Street. Another Methodist Chapel, in Alma Road, existed from 1882 to 1898.
In 1860 the Primitive Methodists rented a hall in Market Street for worship, having previously organised Camp Meetings in Tall Trees Meadow, at the top of Caledonian Road. The congregation moved twice before building a chapel by the South gate of the market on the corner of Caledonian Road and Market Road, opened in 1870.
As with other chapels of the time Caledonian Road was created with a schoolromm in the lower part of the premises, the church services being held in the upper part of the building and its gallery. At some point (possibly 1892) a small classroom was added to the south side of the chapel to house the infant department of the Sunday School.
One of the principal Primitive Methodist churches in London, Caledonian Road hosted the Conference of 1873 . Several of its ministers held high office in the Connexion, including President of the Conference.
Well into the 20th century Caledonian Road was a thriving place. Daughter churches were set up over a wide area and the Primitive Methodist Circuit over which Caledonian Road presided covered an area stretching down to Westminster and out to the newly developing suburbs in Hounslow.
In 1976 the local Social Services team leased part of the building, necessitating internal alterations. the ground floor pews were removed, rostrum and pulpit were removed to create a multipurpose space and part of the chapel converted to provide kitchen, vestry and new toilets. Today 'Cally' continues as the only surviving Victorian Methodist chapel in the Borough of Islington.
Source: http://www.londonmethodist.org.uk/html/history_of_methodism_in_isling4.html
The Wandsworth Circuit had orginally been part of the Hammersmith Circuit. In 1889 the Wandsworth Circuit was divided into several Circuits, one of which was the new Tooting Circuit formed of Upper Tooting, Lower Tooting, Wimbeldon and Merton Churches. This was renamed the London Mission (Tooting) Circuit at the end of 1923.
Emmanuel Mission Hall, Garratt Lane was founded in 1885 and its work was largely superseded by Tooting Central Hall built in 1910.
Balham Hill Methodist Church was in operation from 1898 to around 1920. The Wesleyan Church at Mitcham was built in 1908, the Southfields Methodist Society was founded in 1905 and this Society later built Southfields Central Hall.
Colliers Wood Methodist Mission was built in 1934.
The Primitive Methodists operated several Chapels in the area which later joined the London Mission (Tooting) Circuit following the Unification of the Methodist Church in 1932. The registers of baptisms for Lynwood Road, Upper Tooting include baptisms performed in other Primitive Methodist Chapels. The Church at Balham Hill (Oldridge Road) was formerly at 1 Balham Grove.
Sunbury Methodist Church is situated on Staines Road East, Sunbury. A Methodist meeting-house was first established in Sunbury in 1790 but the present church was not built until 1866. The church is part of the Teddington Circuit.
The Methodist Mothers and Babies Home in Streatham was run by the Women's Fellowship. Its aim was to provide a safe place for vulnerable young women, in particular unmarried mothers.
Cannon Lane Methodist Church is situated in Pinner. It was opened in 1956. It is part of the Harrow and Hillingdon Circuit.
South Ruislip Methodist Church is situated on Queen's Walk. It was opened in 1951.
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.
Holly Park Methodist Church, Crouch Hill, was founded in 1875, although a permament hall was not built until 1882. The Weston Park Mission was begun by the Holly Park Church although it was later taken over by the Middle Lane Church. The Holly Park Methodist Church Hall is now used by the Holly Park Montessori School.
Methodism was established in the Highgate and Hornsey region in the early nineteenth century. It expanded alongside housing in the area and more Methodist churches were constructed. Churches in the area belonged to the Islington Circuit until 1873, when the Highgate Circuit was established.
Cleveland Hall was situated on Cleveland Street, Marylebone. It was a foundation of the West London Mission and was dedicated to helping young women who were in poverty.
The Craven Chapel and Hall were situated on Foubert's Place in the West End of London, near Regent Street. The chapel was constructed in 1822 by the Congregational Church, however, their membership had declined so much that by 1894 they sold the leases of the chapel and hall to the West London Mission of the Methodist Church. The hall was used for a wide variety of activities not just devotional but social, educational and welfare. By 1907 the leases had expired and the buildings were subsequently sold and used for commercial purposes.
The Seymour Place Methodist Church, Bryanstone Square, Marylebone, was originally part of the Primitive Methodist Connexion and belonged to their London Ninth Circuit. It subsequently joined the Wesleyan Methodist West London Mission, possibly after 1932 when the Primitive and Wesleyan Methodists merged. It is now used as the West London Day Centre for homeless people which is run from the Mission headquarters at Thayer Street.
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.
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 London Mission East Circuit is part of the London North East District of the Methodist Church.
Chequer Alley (now Chequer Street) runs between Bunhill Row and Whitecross Street in Islington, near City Road. In the 1840s it was a socially deprived area, home to around 15,000 people living in poverty. In 1841 a Methodist, Miss Macarthy, from the nearby City Road Church began to visit the Alley and hand out Methodist tracts. Interest in her work increased to the point where she was able to begin Sunday preaching in a small hired room. These services eventually expanded to include a Sunday School, Day School, and classes for adults wishing to join the church.
Weymouth Terrace British School, Hackney Road, was in the First London Methodist Circuit circa 1864. British Schools were run using the "Lancasterian Monitorial System of Education", which was developed by Quaker John Lancaster in 1798. The system allowed huge numbers of pupils to be educated under one school-master by using able pupils as monitors assisting the others and was intended to provide a basic education for poor children. The "Society for Promoting the Lancasterian System for the Education of the Poor" was founded in 1808 and had the support of many non-conformists. The Society changed its name to the "British and Foreign Schools Society" in 1814 and founded many 'British Schools' which were often attached to non-conformist churches.
The Hackney Road Methodist Chapel was located in Hoxton, Hackney.
The Shoreditch Methodist Mission was part of the Hoxton Circuit. It later became part of the Leysian Mission Circuit, run from City Road, along with Haggerston Methodist Mission, Brownlow Street and Nichols Square, Hackney Road.
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 Queen Victoria Seamen's Rest (QVSR) started life as the Wesleyan Seamen's Mission of the Methodist Church in 1843. The aim was to minister to the spiritual needs and promote the social and morale welfare of seafarers and their families in the vicinity of the Port of London.
Over time a need arose for a meeting place of some kind in the new sailor town that had sprung up at Poplar. Right opposite the 'seamen's entrance' of the local Board of Trade Office on the East India Dock Road in Jeremiah Street stood a small public house called The Magnet. In 1887, the license of The Magnet was withdrawn, providing the Mission an opportunity to rent the public house and it was transformed into a Seamen's Rest.
Gradually the sphere of the Mission 's operation extended from London Bridge to Tilbury and embraced the river, docks and wharfs, as well as the on-shore haunts of sailors and hospitals, so that by the end of the century it was evident that the old 'Magnet' premises were inadequate. The freehold of No 1 Jeremiah Street and its adjoining properties was purchased in 1899; the whole site was cleared and a new Seamen's Home and Institute built. The foundation stone was laid on the 17th December 1901 by the Lord Mayor of London, and King Edward VII gave his royal consent for the new Seamen's Rest to bear his mother's name, "Queen Victoria ".
The Seamen's Hospital Society 'Dreadnought' rented a portion of the building to use as a sailor's dispensary clinic providing free medical treatment on the premises. In addition free banking was available and a lawyer held an advice surgery once a week. The Association with Seamen's Homes Beyond the Seas had been inaugurated and men from the Mission were introduced to similar institutions in foreign ports. As the work of the mission prospered a resolution was made to extend the building by another storey to increase the number of beds from 25 to 60.
In order to function effectively, QVSR needed a separate hall for public worship and meetings. The Emery Hall was opened on December 5th 1907 by the Patron, HRH Princess Louise. In the First World War, 20,000 unarmed Merchant Seamen lost their lives and the Mission began an appeal to raise funds for a War Memorial Wing with room for another 100 beds. On 20th October 1932 , Prince George (later Duke of Kent) performed the opening ceremony. The extension comprised three stories of private cubicles, 66 in all, a lounge and the New Agar Hall. Each cubicle was plainly furnished with an iron bedstead, dressing table, wooden chair, rug and electric light.
On June 21st 1944 a V1 Flying-bomb fell in Jeremiah Street and the whole of the staff quarters were destroyed. Mercifully, there was no loss of life. Disaster struck again on August 3rd when another bomb displaced the temporary repairs and added further damage, but restoration was done by the seamen lodgers and it was a source of pride that the Rest never closed.
With the war over, plans for the centenary extension of another 60 bedrooms and other sundry communal rooms resumed. The new development was in two parts, one each end of the building. The North Block included an officers' lounge and billiard room together with a chapel, library and 35 bedrooms for officers. The South Block provided not only a common room and rest rooms, two cafes and new bedrooms for ratings, but also a spacious entrance hall with an imposing entrance onto the main road. This necessitated a change of postal address from Jeremiah Street to 121-131 East India Dock Road.
Over the next thirty years, the "Queen Vic" had to adjust itself in line with the re-development of the East End Dockland area and the modernisation of the shipping industry. In order to maintain financial efficiency, space was made to allow a number of retired seamen a more permanent home at QVSR whilst also providing a home for men who had nowhere else to turn. In recent times there has been an increased use of the London River, from Barking Creek to Silvertown, which has re-kindled the need to provide a service that supports the welfare of active seafarers using the Port of London .
Source: http://www.qvsr.org.uk/history.htm.
Balham Methodist Church was situated on Holly Grove, Balham High Road, Balham. It is possibly now the Upper Tooting Methodist Church.
Wesleyan Methodists built a church at King Street, Camden Town, in 1824. In 1860 the King Street premises were sold to a Primitive Methodist congregation, and a new church was constructed at Camden Street. Following the union of Methodist churches in 1932 the congregations were united. The King Street church was renamed Plender Street Church and became the main church, while the Camden Street church became a mission hall and youth centre and were later demolished.
The Camden Street Wesleyan Methodist Church belonged to the Second London Circuit/Great Queen Street Circuit until around 1866, when it transferred to the Kentish Town Circuit. It then transferred to the London Central Mission Circuit in around 1887.
The King Street, Camden Town Primitive Methodist Church belonged to the Ninth London Circuit until around 1885, when it transferred to the Camden Town Circuit.
After the Methodist Church Union in 1932 both churches joined the Camden Town Circuit, though in practice this small circuit appears to have been administered as part of London Central Mission Circuit and was officially absorbed into the London Central Mission Circuit in 1956.
King's Cross Methodist Mission, Charlotte Street was also known as Charlotte Street Methodist Church. It was built by the Wesleyan Methodist Association in 1841. Charlotte Street was re-named Carnegie Street in 1938. The Church was destroyed by a land mine in 1941 but the congregation continued to meet at Liberal Hall, 314 Caledonian Road. The church was transferred from the Hackney Circuit to the Tottenham Circuit, then to the Caledonian Road Circuit and finally the London Central Mission Circuit in 1956. The Church was dissolved in 1960 and the members transferred to King's Cross Central Mission.
The Maidstone Street Methodist Church, Haggerston, was first used by Wesleyan Reformers in 1852. In 1896 the congregation moved to the Harbour Light Church on Goldsmith's Row, Haggerston. The Church joined the London Central Mission Circuit in 1940 but was forced to close after sustaining bomb damage in 1944. It reopened in 1946, and transferred to the London Mission (Hackney and Clapton) Circuit in 1960.
Herne Hill Methodist Church, Railton Road was in the Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth in south London. It was not part of the London Central Mission Circuit. During the period covered by the records in this deposit it was part of the Brixton Circuit of the United Methodist Church.
The Winchmore Hill Wesleyan Methodist Church is part of the Finsbury Circuit of the London North East Division. It originated in 1879 when Thomas Kelsey, a Congregationist and property developer moved to the area of Winchmore Hill (less than 10 miles from London) and built himself a house known as Highfield House. He had employed a missionary to hold meetings in the Congregational School Rooms in Hoppen Road for the benefit of the men employed in the construction and development of the Bowes Park and the Eaton Park Estates.
Thomas Kelsey offered the Finsbury Park Methodist Circuit a plot of land on the sole condition that a chapel was built there and regular services undertaken. This was subsequently agreed upon and on 30th November 1880, the stone laying took place.
The Chapel opened for worship in 1881 with services taken by the Reverend Charles Moore. The chapel was originally known as Eaton Park Wesleyan Chapel as it was situated some distance from both Winchmore Hill and Palmers Green.
By 1906 the area around the chapel was expanding rapidly giving support to the Methodist congregation. This development encouraged the Trustees to propose the building of a new chapel in front of the existing one. They began by establishing a new Trust in 1907 and a Building Fund to raise money. However, it was not until another 5 years in 1912 that the New church stone laying ceremony took place and on 28th September 1912 the church was officially opened and dedicated.
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. Circuits and missions in the London North East District include: London City Road, Tower Hamlets, Newham, Hackney, Stoke Newington, Finsbury park and Southgate, Tottenham, Enfield, Waltham Abbey and Hertford, [Epping] Forest, Barking and Ilford, West Essex, Bishop's Stortford, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Romford, Grays, Southend-on-sea, Leigh-on-sea, Basildon, Chelmsford, Colchester, Manningtree and Harwich, Clacton-on-Sea.
Wesleyan Methodists first met in 1886 in a house in College Road, Kensal Rise. A tin chapel opened in 1887 in Hiley Road, replaced by a brick chapel in 1900 at the corner of Chamberlayne Wood Road and Ladysmith Road (later Wrentham Avenue), near Kensal Rise railway station. Attendance in 1903 was 330 for morning service and 568 for evening service. The Chapel was sold to the Roman Catholic Church in 1977, although the Methodists continued to meet in an adjacent hall. In 2006 the hall hosted a temporary advice and support centre following a tornado strike on Chamberlayne Road.
From: 'Willesden: Protestant nonconformity', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 7: Acton, Chiswick, Ealing and Brentford, West Twyford, Willesden (1982), pp. 242-246.
Willoughby Road Wesleyan Methodist church opened as a Sunday school chapel in 1885, on land acquired in 1882 near the corner of Hampden Road. Classrooms were built in 1889 and a church, perhaps replacing an iron one, was opened on the corner site to the east in 1893. A lecture hall and more classrooms were added to the north in 1903. The congregation, which belonged to the Finsbury Park circuit, was joined by many from Mattison Road in 1963. After a fire in 1973 Willoughby Road church was replaced by a yellow-brick structure which, with the adjoining schoolroom in Hampden Road, seated 300.
From: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 6: Friern Barnet, Finchley, Hornsey with Highgate (1980), pp. 183-189.
Hither Green Wesleyan Methodist Church stood in the angle of Wellmeadow Road and Hither Green Lane, Lewisham. It was built in 1900 by architects Gordon, Lowther and Gunton, but was destroyed by bombing in 1940. A new church was built on Torridon Road. It is part of the Blackheath and Lewisham Methodist Circuit.
In 1887 Hugh Price Hughes was appointed the first Superintendent Minister of the West London Mission. Together with his wife, Katherine, he developed practical programmes for the poor and laid the foundations for much of the Mission's work. Katherine herself was responsible for the establishment of 'The Sisters of the People', an order of women serving the poor.
Initially the Mission was based in St. James's Hall in Piccadilly from where the inaugural service was given on 21 October 1887. Hughes died in 1902 and three years later in 1905 St. James's Hall was demolished. There followed a period of movement for the West London Mission and its congregation. First relocating to Exeter Hall, in 1907 the Mission moved to Great Queen Street before renting the Lyceum Theatre in 1909.
The movement of the mission could only be a temporary measure until suitable accommodation was found. In 1911 institutional buildings at Kingsway Hall, Holborn were completed and in 1912 the Hall opened for public services. With a hall designed to seat 2,000 people and institutional buildings with space for a gymnasium, boys and girls clubs, schoolrooms and lecture halls, and a crèche it seemed as though the West London Mission had found its home.
In 1936 a second great figure in the Mission's history, Donald Soper, went to Kingsway Hall. He would remain as Superintendent until his retirement in 1978. At this time the relocation of the Mission once again became a necessary consideration.
By 1980 Kingsway Hall was no longer fit for purpose and the West London Mission offices and Kingsway Hall congregation moved to Hinde Street. A Methodist chapel had stood on Hinde Street since 1810 and had become part of the West London Mission in 1917. From this new home activities such as a Wednesday club and an open-access provision for the homeless were able to continue.
In Northwood, Hillingdon, Primitive Methodists first met in a house called 'Elthorne' from about 1896. In that year a school chapel was built on the corner of the High Street and Hallowell Road. The present church next to the school chapel was completed in 1903, with further extensions made in 1910 and 1927. Enemy action caused considerable damage to the building in 1944.
Methodists were the largest non-established denomination in the Harrow and Wembley area, with the first of many chapels in this area erected in 1810. Several churches were built in the 1920s including the chapel on Park Lane, Wembley, which was first called the Wesleyan Church. From 20 September 1932 (when the different branches of Methodism united) the name was changed to the Methodist Church. It was closed in 1961.
John and Charles Wesley preached in Hayes church on at least ten occasions between 1748 and 1753. By 1816 the Methodists had erected a chapel in Hayes, but nothing else is known of the Methodist congregation in Hayes until 1906, when the Hayes Tabernacle at Wood End Green was registered by Wesleyan Methodists. Hayes Methodist Church began in Station Road, in 1907. It was registered at that address in 1927. In 1930 the registered name was changed to Queen's Hall Methodist Church, Station Road. In 1973 Queen's Hall closed and work began on a new church, which opened in September 1977, and was renamed Hayes Methodist Church.
In 1878 the Primitive Methodists registered a chapel in Western Road, Southall. A new chapel building, standing on the corner of Western and Sussex Roads, was erected in 1876-1877. This was the first Methodist building in the Southall area.
The Wesley Central Hall was constructed in 1930.
Ridgeway Wesleyan Methodist church originated in the late 1880s, when a Wesleyan mission was opened in a temporary hall in Mill Hill. In 1893 a red-brick chapel in the Perpendicular style was built. At first the church was under the control of Hendon Methodist church, but in 1970 it was linked with Goodwyn Avenue Methodist church.
John Wesley preached in Hillingdon and Uxbridge in 1754 and 1758, but there is no other evidence of 18th-century Methodist activity. By 1851, however, there were five Methodist meetings in Hillingdon. The Methodist Central Hall was erected in 1930 at the junction of High Street and Park Road. In 1957 Lawn Road Primitive Methodist congregation was amalgamated with that of Central Hall. The Central Hall was renovated and extended in 1959 to meet the increased demand.
Mattison Road church, later renamed Harringay church, opened in 1891 as an iron tabernacle (a pre-fabricated timber framed structure clad with corrugated iron which could quickly be assembled from a kit to provide a building until a more permanent structure could be constructed). The tabernacle was replaced by a permanent church and halls in 1901. Originally part of the Caledonian Road circuit of the Primitive Methodists, it joined the Finsbury Park circuit after the Methodists' union in 1931. In 1903 membership was so high that Mattison Road was described as the chief Primitive Methodist church in London. The church closed in 1963 and became a Roman Catholic church.
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.
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.
Brentford is now part of the Richmond and Hounslow Methodist Circuit.
The Bow Circuit was the first Home Mission circuit in Methodism, and the newly formed Metropolitan Wesleyan chapel Building Fund purchased land in Bow Road for future development. Alexander McAulay was appointed superintendent of the newly created Bow Circuit in 1861.
In September 1900 Bow and Poplar Circuits were united to become the Poplar and Bow branch of the London Mission (the successor of the Metropolitan Wesleyan Chapel Building Fund which had helped to establish Bow in 1863).
In 1961 Poplar and Bow Mission was divided into two separate circuits of Poplar and Bow.
No historical information has been located for this Chapel.
Bow Road Wesleyan Methodist Church was founded by the Reverend Alexander McAulay, who began preaching from his home in 1861. The Chapel was constructed by 1865. Various evangelical and social welfare activities took place at the Church, including the Queen Mary Day Nursery, medical clinics and a youth centre.
The Methodist Church established its first East-End Mission in 1885, hoping to combat the poverty and squalor of the area. Poverty and sin were fought by a combination of evangelism and social work, for example, handing out free meals during winter, organising trips to the seaside and showing films for a penny. The Mission had its own magazine, "The East End", which included articles on the scale of the distress.
As the population of the East End changed after the Second World War, so too did the Mission. In 1985 the Mission celebrated its centenary and highlighted its continuing work in socially deprived areas, supporting the homeless, unemployed, single parents, immigrants, the disabled and the elderly.
Shirley Street United Methodist Church, Canning Town, was founded in 1853, probably by Wesleyan Reformers. A small church was built in Victoria Dock Road in 1860. This was sold to the school board in 1873, when a new church and schoolroom were built in Shirley Street. Shirley Street was bombed in 1940, but continued in use until 1942, when the members moved to Canning Town Primitive Methodist Church. When that too was bombed a remnant went to Custom House Primitive Methodist Church. War damage compensation from Shirley Street helped to build the new church in Fife Road, Canning Town, in 1960. The Shirley Street site was sold to the borough council and by 1963 was occupied by houses.
From: A History of the County of Essex: Volume 6 (1973), pp. 123-141.
The Mostyn Road Methodist Church, Lambeth, was constructed in 1868, designed by architect John Tarring.