Sponsored by
Peak gets last word on Wesley's pulpit
AN historic pulpit used by John Wesley during a visit to New Mills more than 200 years ago has returned to the town.
The pulpit had been installed in New Mills' first Methodist Chapel on High Street in 1766 and Wesley preached from it when he visited the town in 1768 and again during subsequent visits.
In 1812, the pulpit moved to a new chapel that had been built at Whitfield near Glossop. It then travelled to a number of churches around the area as well as being displayed, but not used for preaching, in the Central Hall on Oldham Street, Manchester.
It has since spent a number of years in storage in a garage.
But two members of New Mills Local History Society, Derek Brumhead and John Humphreys, last month travelled to Abbot Hall, a former methodist hotel at Kent's Bank near Grange over Sands, to collect the famous Wesley pulpit which had been left in pieces in a garage buried behind agricultural machinery and a motor bike.
It has now been brought back to New Mills where John and a team of dedicated volunteers from the Heritage Centre will restore and reassemble it before finding a location to display it.
Derek said: "This has been an historic event in the history of New Mills methodism, and Seth Evans (local methodist historian) would be delighted that the pulpit has returned home — there is a photograph of it in his book, which is now available as a reprint from the heritage centre.
"Alan Rose, methodist historian, is of the opinion that the pulpit must be one of the oldest in British methodism," he said.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Buxton
Saturday 04 February 2012
Today
Heavy snow
Temperature: -2 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 5 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: West
