Monument record MDR12866 - Mount Zion Chapel (site of), Chapel Street, Marlpool

The Independents have a chapel at Marlpool, which was erected in 1821 at a cost £522. It was enlarged in 1833 at a cost of £308 and will now seat 500 persons. The chapel also has attached capacious school rooms. (1) There is a Congregational Chapel situated here on the 1st edition 25" OS map of c. 1880. It is named as Mount Zion Chapel. (2) Around 1800, the Reverend Joshua Shaw, of the Independent Chapel at Ilkeston, brough two existing non-conformist groups together to form a single group that met at the premises of Benjamin Hardy, a town-centre draper. The group soon outgrew this meeting place, and they purchased the land on what is now Chapel Street in 1820. The new meeting house and Sunday school took two years to complete, and a minister was appointed in 1825. By 1827, this building was already too small, and a new chapel was built on the same site. It was named Mount Zion Independent Chapel. A gallery was inserted in the 1840s. Gas lighting was fitted in 1878. A project to raise funds for a pipe-organ was begun in 1889, but the money was later used to feed children during the Great Coal Strike of 1893. The Chapel was also responsible for feeding over 300 children a day during the coal strikes of the 1920's. Electric lighting was added to the chapel in 1928. In 2002, the chapel was demolished and replaced due to it being beyond economic repair. (3)