The former Wesleyan Methodist Chapel is located on Hassall Road in Alsager.
The one-roomed chapel was built in 1834 on Hassall Road on land donated by land owner John Plant. The Methodists had previously met in a loom shop, the house of Mary Cotton, just of Cross Street.
In 1852, as Alsager grew alongside the railways, a new church building was erected on the site adjacent to the original chapel, to meet the demands of a growing congregation.
A second and larger Methodist Church was built at the other end of the village in 1869.
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The Hassall Road chapel closed as a place of worship on 13th December 2009.
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The building is now the Alsager Book Emporium that opened in March 2012. It is part of the Cheshire South Circuit for second-hand book sales.
"The Chapel is situated on the edge of Alsager only 2 miles from Junction 16 of the M6. The chapel was redundant and is proving a useful "Fresh Expression". There are over 25,000 books in subject order and there is everything from History to modern Paperbacks. There is a good Christian section, with sections on Methodism, Theology, Bible Commentaries and worship material.
There are also very good sections on History, Gardening, Classics, Local History, Travel, Geography and children's, not to mention cookery. The customers like the fact that books are in subject order and even for fiction and in alphabetical order!!
Refreshments are available and there is a place to relax and read as well as a display in the chapel area of early Primitive Methodism with banners and display boards.
The bookshop supports the work of Englesea Brook Museum and all the profits go to help the Museum. This is replacing the booksales at Mow Cop and as well as the bookshop we are also putting books on the Internet through Amazon. We have now over 2,500 books on the internet and another 2,000 waiting to go on. Sales are very good and increasing as more books are put on. We have volunteers who put books on the net and also others, who pick up books, pack them and then send them off.
We have been blessed with some very good volunteers who are helping to sort the books, serve customers and make tea/coffee. We serve coffee/tea and visitors find the staff helpful and pleasant
When we started we didn't realise how much shelving we would need. We eat it up very quickly and still need more, both for the Internet books and the shelves in the chapel. Our aim is to get everything on shelves in order-we even have the paperback fiction in alphabetical order, thanks to a retired Librarian.
We have had some very good donations including a recent one of over 1.000 books on Methodist history, including some 200-300 chapel Histories from all over the country. There was a lot of early and rare Primitive Methodist material which has filled gaps in the Englesea Brook collection. We have also had someone who donated a large collection of modern detective fiction. One of the delights is never knowing what will come in. A carrier bag looked to have just some rather tatty modern paperbacks inside but at the bottom of the bag was a copy of Jules Verne's Ballooning trip to East Africa in 1876! We recently collected 5,000 books from Nottingham which we are sorting and hope to collect books from around the country, although because we are very close to the M6 Motorway it is hoped that people will drop them in when they are passing. We can arrange to open up for people coming with books.
The Cheshire South Circuit recently gave £25 book vouchers to 12 local preachers on trial to be used at Hassall Road and they availed themselves of Worship material and Bible Commentaries. We have started a new service – if you are looking for a particular book or books on a subject, let us know what you are looking for and we will contact you when those books/subjects come in.
We are thinking about a Bank Holiday Sale in August but not sure what form it will take. We hope to continue opening on Friday/Saturday mornings and even expand on the opening hours, especially as a lot of other bookshops have closed. It is also supporting the work of Englesea Brook Museum and the exciting development work Dr Jill Barber is doing there. " SOURCE: (
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Opening Times:
Friday -10am -2pm
Saturday -10am -2pm
They can open at other times by request.
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