1811 - Methodist Church - Silverstone, Northamptonshire
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SMacB
N 52° 05.352 W 001° 01.540
30U E 635262 N 5772797
The methodist chapel on Chapel Hill, Silverstone was built in 1811.
Waymark Code: WMWWPQ
Location: East Midlands, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 10/23/2017
Views: 0
The methodist chapel on Chapel Hill is dated 1811, just below the small roundel window of the gable.
"Shortly after the completion of the parish church the village began to see the rise of the Non Conformists. This included the arrival of the Wesleys and Methodism within the village with John Wesley preaching in a cottage near to the present Methodist chapel. More than 20 years after Wesley’s sermon Methodism had taken hold the current Methodist Chapel was constructed on Chapel Hill in 1811. This has been extended and altered during the centuries that have followed but survives today as a testament to the strength of Methodism within the settlement in the 19th century. This was no doubt linked to the independent nature of the forest villagers and the less traditional workings of the Methodist Church with a reliance on lay people. The beginning of the 19th century also saw changes to the built fabric of the village with the loss of some houses on the High Street in what has been recorded as ‘the Great Silson Fire of 1807.’ In May of that year the Northampton Mercury published a report of a fire which destroyed nine buildings as a result of ‘singeing a pig too near to some thatch’.
A number of these were replaced and rebuilt with further buildings also being constructed at that time including Home Farmhouse on the High Street (constructed in 1818) which remains today as a Grade II listed building. The continued growth of the Methodist Church saw mass education arrive in the village for the first time, in the form of the hall attached to the Methodist Chapel where classes were held. A few years later, concerned by the growing influence of Methodism the Church of England opened a school in the Church Rooms at the junction of Little London and Stocks Hill."
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