Walford, Herefordshire

Not so primitive, 2

Spotted on the same day as the chapel in my previous post, this building is in Walford, between Brampton Bryan and Leintwardine in far northwest Herefordshire. It’s another Primitive Methodist chapel and, like the one in Weobley, it’s a brick building with a pitched roof and stone dressings around the windows and doors. And yet it looks very different from the Weobley chapel because it’s in the Gothic style – all the openings are pointed and those at the front have some extra elaboration in the form of carved terminations to the hood moulds over the windows and doorway. There’s also a charming quatrefoil-shaped opening in the gable, the frame of which contains the inscription, ‘Primitive Methodist Chapel 1866’.

The wing to the right was built as a schoolroom. Its glazing bars have a simpler pattern than those at the front of the chapel, but are still probably original. Both roofs are enhanced by curvaceous bargeboards of a kind I associate more with large suburban villas than Primitive Methodist Chapels, but why should the devil have all the good carpentry?

As can be seen from the signage, the chapel, the building is not longer used for worship, housing instead a gallery where drawings are exhibited. Chapels can make good gallery spaces, and this seems a dream use for such a building that is no longer required for its original purpose. Someone said that the latest art galleries, designed by starry architects and filled with works that are designed to shock or awe, are the cathedrals of our time. But I appreciate this chapel-gallery too.*

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* See the gallery’s website for information about The Drawing Gallery and its exhibitions.

Weobley, Herefordshire

Not so primitive, 1

Following on from my previous post, here is another building in Weobley that I missed on my first visit. It’s the Methodist chapel, built in 1861, originally for the Primitive Methodists. The Primitive Methodists were a group founded in the early-19th century, who sought to focus on the core ideas of Methodism, which they felt that many Methodists were ignoring. They stressed in particular the role of the laity, worked to preach to the rural poor, and did not shy away from the political relevance of Christian ideas; they also adopted simple forms of worship and, often, of chapel architecture.

My mental picture of a Primitive Methodist chapel is a very plain building, perhaps built of brick, with a front comprising a pair of windows and a central door, topped with a hipped roof. However, the Primitives were not above a little architectural sophistication. This chapel has the simple brick front with two windows and a door, but this is elaborated with stone quoins plus rusticated stone blocks around the windows and doorway. These details succeed, in my opinion, in lifting the building above the mundane without indulging in what some of its early worshippers might have seen as Gothic flights of fancy. I find the result visually pleasing, and it’s pleasing, too, to see that the windows have retained their original glazing bars. No doubt the light they let in is a real asset when it comes to reading hymn books and Bibles – the chapel still used for worship, unlike at least two others I spotted in Herefordshire on my visit the other day.

Black Country Living Museum, Dudley

In motion and at rest, 2: Delivering the good news

The idea of the Christian minister travelling around and preaching wherever he went is as old as St Paul. It was a practice taken up enthusiastically by John Wesley, who travelled widely and often preached outdoors, to large and appreciative crowds. No wonder, then, that many other Methodists followed in his footsteps and did the same. One way to travel was to use a wagon, caravan, or living van – call it what you will – pulled by a horse, which could act as mobile dwelling, means of transport, platform for preaching, or even tiny, mobile church in which to teach or preach to small groups. The Methodists (both Wesleyan and Primitive branches) used these vehicles in the 19th and early-20th centuries, and called them ‘Gospel cars’.

This one is in fact a replica that has found a permanent parking place near the boat dock at the Black Country Living Museum. It is painted dark blue, from which numerous blessings and Christian maxims painted in white stand out. Along the bargeboard at the front is emblazoned the name ‘Ebenezer No. 11’ – it’s one of a series, then, and calling it Ebenezer is a way of implying that it’s a much a chapel as any bricks and mortar building that bears the same name – a popular one among the Methodists in the 19th century.*

Inside, the gospel car is neatly kitted out with a stove, seating that can turn into bedding at night, and, in true chapel fashion, an organ. Or, I should say, a harmonium, an organ of a very particular sort, with reeds instead of pipes, and an air supply provided by the player as they pump away at a couple of foot pedals. In my childhood I remember seeing the inside of quite a few chapels (maybe some of them were ‘Ebenezers’ – I’m not sure), and before I was born, my mother played the harmonium in her small Methodist chapel in Lincolnshire. So maybe that’s why I didn’t feel at all alienated by this chapel on wheels and why I felt some sympathy for the person ‘on a mission’ and preaching to a handful or a crowd from the platform – framed by roof brackets carved with crosses – of a horse-drawn ‘Gospel car’.

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* A while back I had an email exchange with an old friend who’d been speaking to someone who thought that, because of his name, Dickens’s character Ebenezer Scrooge was Jewish. Brought up among nonconformists, who often called their children such names as Isaac or Leah, this had never occurred to me. There’s nothing in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, as far as I can see, that says Scrooge is Jewish. To someone like my mother, descended from both Jewish and nonconformist ancestors, such names were both ‘Jewish names’ and ‘Biblical names’, available for use by followers of either faith, and so were names like Salem, Zion, and Ebenezer, when used, as they were frequently, on Methodist chapels. 

 

Thanks to one of my regular readers (see Comments section) for reminding me that Ebenezer means ‘Stone of Truth’, in commemoration of a memorial stone set up by Samuel to mark the victory over the Philistines. Among other common chapel names, Salem means ‘Peace’, Bethel ‘House of God’, and Bethesda ‘House of Mercy’ or ‘Healing pool’. 

Ledbury, Herefordshire

Putting up a front

In the same street as my two previous posts is this building, one that has caught my eye before as I’ve driven past. It’s very much the kind of facade that makes you want to do a double take. On foot, this was possible, and the photograph is one result. It turns out to be a former Wesleyan Methodist chapel, built originally in 1849 but upgraded in 1884, when this elaborate frontage was added. It’s quite a statement in a sort of free Romanesque style: twin towers that decide to become octagonal partway up (they contain stairs to internal galleries), big windows, a really large rose window, yellow brick dressings contrasting with the red. A hundred years on from the refronting, the central part of the ground floor was altered – a pair of exterior staircases to the upper level were taken out and the rather dull central doorway block substituted. That was no doubt practical but seems to have been unfortunate visually. Now to make matters worse the whole building seems to be empty.

I don’t know more of the chapel’s history, but it’s very grand for a small town. However, judging by the large 19th-century houses further up the same street, Ledbury was clearly prosperous in that period. It’s in a rich agricultural region (lots of hop fields, together with mixed farming) and the town must have benefitted from the railway link. Ledbury was linked to the West Midlands Railway in 1861 and a branch to Gloucester was added in 1885. Some of the town’s Methodist population may have benefitted from the town’s new opportunities and put some of their profits into the church. What they built reminds us how bold some nonconformist architecture could be, and how the design of some of these buildings could draw on the variety of styles available during the most eclectic periods of the Victorian era.