The church and partner buildings on the West side of the High Street has had an interesting history.
Primitive Methodists created ‘Missions’ in places where people were interested in becoming members. In 1812 The Primitive Methodists broke away from the Methodist Church, which had itself become a denomination separate from the Church of England in 1784.
Did you know?
The Methodist chapel cost £1,173 to build including £400 for the site, over £110,000 in today’s money, which is maybe why it took its owners many years to clear the debt of £900 from 1877.
Emsworth was ‘Missioned’ in 1875 and, by March 1876, had a society of 58 members with 45 Sunday School scholars formed and a site for a chapel secured. The Primitive Methodist chapel was opened in 1889. The chapel was in shape rather like a coffin, with galleries on three sides and a simple communion table at the east end, flanked by lectern desks for the reader and clerk and a pulpit with a fat red cushion. The chaplain’s stipend was paid for by a combination of pew rents and voluntary contributions. As all the seats in the chapel were paid for this meant that the poor, if they wished to go to church, still had to trudge in the mud out to Warblington!
The site had a long garden going behind St Peter’s chapel and abutting the Nile Street chapel to the south and had originally been owned by James Preston, a barrack-master in Jamaica. He died in 1842, leaving the property to his wife. In order to produce an income, which was difficult for women in those days, she passed the property over to Henry Tier and Charles Barham on the condition that she was occupant for life and with an annuity of £40 per annum, around £4,000 per year equivalent today. After her death Tier and Barham sold it to the Primitive Methodist Rev W Rowe.
Did you know?
Barracks are buildings used to accommodate military personnel, with the English word coming from the old Spanish ‘barraca’, meaning a soldier’s tent. The barrack-master commanded the whole barracks that usually housed 150 to 250 soldiers.
During the 1930s the premises at the back of the church were occupied by a residential pastor, the Reverend Keen, with his wife and family. Then, in 1932, the Primitive Methodists reunited with the United Methodists and Wesleyan Methodists to form the Methodist Church.
In 1962 the state of repair of the building caused concern and the left the future of the Methodist Society in doubt. After much discussion it was decided that the Society should continue and, in the following years, membership did grow and many hours of voluntary effort were put in to the repair and modernising of the building.
In 1982 the front of the site was developed as a Pastoral Centre. In 1999 the church acquired the property to the south of it, formerly the International Stores, and a year later it opened as part of the Pastoral Centre. A major building project was then completed in 2008 to connect the two buildings into the one we see below today.
- See more about Emsworth Methodist church at the website – click here
- Read about the International Stores linked to this site – click here
- Read about the Cross Kitchen next door to this site – click here
- For more heritage visit the Emsworth museum – click here