Monument record MDR12754 - Methodist Chapel (site of), Wood Street, Ripley

The Wesleyan Reformers Chapel on Wood Street was formerly a lecture hall, but was purchased by them in 1854, and converted in to a chapel at a cost of £800. It is a neat brick building with a gallery at the north end, and will seat about 400 persons. There are school rooms attached, in which an Infant's school is held, and about 50 attend. (1) There is a Primitive Methodist Chapel situated here on the 1st edition OS map. (2) The Primitive Methodist Chapel on Wood Street originally belonged to the Wesleyan Reformers. It is a plain building of brick, with a gallery, seated with open pews to accommodate 400. The organ was presented by Mr George Haynes, in 1892. Affixed against the wall on either side is a neat stone monument; one to James Law, the other to Emanuel Buxton. Adjoining the chapel, at the rear, is a spacious Sunday School, built in 1892, at a cost of £1,379, including chapel improvements. (3) In the 1850s there was a religious revival in Ripley, and the lecture hall in Wood Street, which had been built in the 1840s, was purchased by the Reform Methodists. This purchase led to the building of a new chapel, called Ebenezer. The Reform Methodists had previously met at the back of George Rowland's shop in Church Street (now Godkins [2011]), and later in a room in malthouse yard. By 1860, the chapel was too small for the Reform Methodists, and a new church, also called Ebenezer, was built in CO-OP Square [see SMR 24791]. A following of Primitive Methodists had built up in Ripley by the late 1840s, and a group met in a room in the Malt House. In 1850 the Ripley Primitive Methodist Church became head of a new circuit. This church was in Grosvenor Road [see SMR 24790]. In the 1870s there was a big religious revival under the leadership of the Rev John Thomas Neale. By this time the church in Grosvenor Road was too small to hold all the people who attended, so in 1876 a group of miners bought new premises in Wood Street, which had reverted to a lecture Hall and ladies school [following the departure of the Reform Methodists]. The cost of the move was £700 and the new premises were called Wood Street Mission Hall. A schoolroom was then built in 1892 at a cost of £1,379, at which time the premises were known as Primitive Methodist Church, Wood Street. In 1989, the Wood Street Methodist Church was renamed Ripley Methodist Church, now being the only Methodist Church in Ripley. During 2009 the church was demolished, and a new church was built in its place. (4)