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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Source: http://www.enfieldcircuit.com/SouthgateHistory.htm

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.

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.

John Wesley frequently visited Brentford, where a Methodist group existed in 1745. Congregations met in a large building, perhaps near St. George's Church. The former Presbyterian chapel at Ferry Lane, Old Brentford, was used from 1783. In 1811 a new meeting house north of the High Street was opened. As attendance grew the church was expanded and in 1890 it was replaced by an ornate Gothic building at the corner of Windmill and Clifden Roads. The church was restored in 1951 after bomb damage sustained during the Second World War. In 1964, after union with the Jubilee Chapel, the current Clifden Road Methodist Church, was built on part of site in Clifden Road, off Windmill Road, and has been used ever since. The church is part of the Richmond and Hounslow Methodist Circuit.

Ealing Broadway Wesleyan Methodist church originated in services at 1 Milford Villas, the Mall, 1864. A new chapel seating 300 was built in Windsor Road in 1865 while an adjoining church seating 1,000 was added on the corner with the Mall in 1869. The chapel was replaced by a hall in 1925. This building was compulsorily sold in 1970 and the church members moved to Ealing Green United Reformed Church in 1972.

The Ealing Dean or West Ealing Primitive Methodist church on Uxbridge Road was built in 1900 with seating for 450. The congregation had been housed in a temporary chapel since 1861. The church was closed in 1959, when the congregation moved to the Kingsdown Methodist church. The buildings were sold in 1963.

The area of West Ealing was known as "Ealing Dean" until the late nineteenth century.

Earlsmead United Methodist Church and Central Hall, Tottenham had its origins in meetings over a shop in Saint Ann's Road, which led to the building of Earlsmead Bible Christian hall, registered in the High Road in 1886. The hall came to be used by Methodists from the nearby Westerfield Road hall. In 1909 the congregation joined the United Methodist Free Churches and opened a second chapel in the High Road, converting the older chapel into a schoolroom. Earlsmead United Methodist church was recertified as Central Hall in 1935. It had seating for 750 and was closed in 1953.

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. 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 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 Brunswick Church was constructed in 1834 while the Zion Church, Neate Street, was constrructed in 1855.

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.

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.

The Whitechapel Methodist Mission was a Primitive Methodist foundation, arising from the home mission activities of one of the Methodists' greatest ministers, the Reverend Thomas Jackson, who worked in the East End of London for 56 years. His work at Whitechapel built on his earlier work in Bethnal Green, Walthamstow and Clapton.

The Whitechapel Mission combined social work with evangelical work. The station began in 1897 when Thomas Jackson bought the Working Lads' Institute which was due to close owing to a shortage of funds. He used this as the basis for his work in Whitechapel. In 1901 the Mission acquired a property on Marine Parade, Southend, to continue the provision of holidays and convalescent stays for the poor from the area. In 1906 Brunswick Hall was purchased, and this enabled a physical separation of the social and evangelical work. The Mission's many activities included free breakfasts and penny dinners for local children, a Medical Mission, free legal advice service, night shelter for homeless men, distribution of food, coal and grocery tickets to the poor and prison gate rescue work (especially amongst young men), which developed into full probation work with the opening of Windyridge Hostel.

Pembroke Road Methodist church was founded in 1904 by the main Muswell Hill Methodist church as a Wesleyan mission hall. In 1922 it moved to the Freehold mission hall in Sydney Road, which was replaced in 1954 by a new church in Pembroke Road. In 1975 a small red-brick church seated 150 and shared a minister with Manor Drive Methodist church.

From: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 6: Friern Barnet, Finchley, Hornsey with Highgate (1980), pp. 32-33.

The Hillingdon Methodist Circuit was made up of 9 churches on the western edge of London, north of Heathrow Airport. Since 2006 it has been part of the Harrow and Hillingdon 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.

John Wesley visited Staines in 1771 and preached in a house which had just been fitted up for the purpose. He recorded an enthusiastic reception and according to the Anglican authorities the number of Methodists increased between 1778 and 1810. There does not seem to have been a proper chapel before about 1845, but the Wesleyan minister from Windsor registered a dwelling-house in Staines for religious worship in 1825. By 1865, and probably twenty years before, the Wesleyan chapel stood on the site of the present Salvation Army fortress in the Kingston Road. This chapel was replaced in 1890 by the present building in the Gothic style on the other side of the road. It is built in red brick with stone dressings and has a south-west spire. In 1957 the church had about 160 members.

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. 30-31.

The Sermon Lane Mission was founded in 1849 as the Sermon Lane Ragged School, Islington. The earliest surviving report in this accession locates the mission in Liverpool Road, Islington. By 1910 it is described as being in Mantell Street, Liverpool Road. By 1922 the Mission was known as the Sermon Lane Christian Institute and had moved to Vincent Terrace, Colebrook Row. The Institute closed in the early 1980's.

In 1878 the Primitive Methodists registered a chapel in Western Road, Southall.

The Wesleyan Methodists opened a chapel in South Road in 1885. In 1916 the King's Hall was erected on the same site, forming the headquarters of Wesleyan Methodism in the area and provided a place for their social and religious meetings.

The Uxbridge and Southall Circuit served Methodist churches in South West London. It was reorganised in 2006 and the churches redistributed, for example, to the Ealing Trinity Circuit and the Amersham Circuit.