The Wesleyan Chapel

 

 

 

Chapel in 2000

 

The Wesleyan chapel was erected about 1826.  John Wesley had visited the area he preached in Middleton in 1764.  It is likely that prayer meetings were held in local houses.  The chapel was built by a private individual.  It was heightened in 1862 and the woodwork overhauled by David Barr.  In 1851 the Chapel Steward was William Seamer.  He recorded an evening attendance of 62 for the 1851 census.  This was a special religious census which took place on Sunday 30th March 1851.  Overall attendance in Pickering revealed 35.3% Church of England,32.6% Wesleyan,26.4% Primitive Methodist with a very small Roman Catholic presence.  About a third of the population attended church on the census day.

 

The chapel was rebuilt in 1879 and substantially renovated in the 1930's being reopened by a Phyllis Wood in 1934.  It is now a private house.  The 'schoolroom ' was added around 1885 to the west of the main building primarily as a Sunday school for local children, known as the 'sunshine corner'.

 

Mrs Pat Dickinson's grandfather, Thomas Skilbeck, was organist at the Chapel for many years.  The Chapel closed for worship in 1989.  It is now a private house.

 

 

 

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