Bradwell Primitive Methodist Chapel on Hugh Lane, Bradwell. Images looking east from Smithy Hill, 1899 / 2022. The 1899 image is from the Primitive Methodist Magazine of that year.
""This Place of Worship was founded in 1845, but we understand it was closed in 1972, and the premises are now in secular use.
Bradwell's second Primitive Methodist Chapel was built in 1845 at a cost of £700 and enlarged in 1878 for a similar amount, with other improvements, including a new organ, carried out since. It contains several memorial tablets to the Eyres, Hallams, Halls and Mortons, and outside has an extensive graveyard.
The return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/449/3/16/15) is for "Bethel" Chapel, in "Hope, Bradwell", a separate building erected in 1846 for a congregation of Primitive Methodists, used exclusively as a place of worship. It had free sittings for 450, and 120 "other" sittings, and the estimated congregation on March 30th was 250 in the afternoon, and 400 in the evening. The return was completed by John Jackson, its Minister, who gave his address as "Bradwell near Castleton, Derbyshire". He remarked that "the 226 Scholars are taught by 34 gratuitous Teachers".
Primitive Methodism in Bradwell was an offshoot of the Sheffield mission, and was begun by Jeremiah Gilbert, who was imprisoned in Bolsover Round House for preaching there in the year 1819.
This Chapel replaced Bradwell's first Primitive Methodist Chapel, in Farther (Far) Hill. It was opened by Hugh Bourne, with Gilbert as its first minister, and dates from 1822.
The following notice in The London Gazette of 1st February 1848 (p.326) recorded "Bethel"'s registration for marriages:
NOTICE is hereby given, that a separate building, named Bethlehem, situated at Bradwell, in the parish of Hope, in the county of Derby, in the district of Bakewell union, being a building certified according to law as a place of religious worship, was, on the 26th day of January 1848, duly registered for solemnizing marriages therein, pursuant to the Act of the 6th and 7th William 4, chap. 85. Dated 27th January 1848.
A corresponding notice of cancellation, of the registration of "BETHELEM METHODIST CHURCH, Bradwell", was published in the Gazette of 17th July 1975 (p.9125); and a 'The Bethlehem Chapel, Bradwell' the building appeared in the "For Sale" section of The Peak Advertiser, on 9th May 2005, and is assumed to be now in private ownership. "
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