Listed Buildings
in Stoke-on-Trent and area
Wesleyan
Methodist Church, Etruria
Area
Etruria |
Street
Etruria Old Road |
Heritage No.
37a |
Grade
II |
Date Listed
13 May 1986 |
|
Building:
Weslyan Methodist Church |
|
Location:
STOKE ON TRENT SJ84NE |
|
Description:
Non-conformist chapel built 1820, two story, developed by
Josiah Wedgwood |
Wesleyan
Methodist Chapel, dated 1820
photo: Steve Birks - May
2000
Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, dated 1820.
Lined out stucco with stuccoed dressings in
contrasting colour. Slate roof. Pedimented facade, with date and
inscription, "Wesleyan Chapel" in a cartouche in the pediment.
Central doorway with shouldered architrave
beneath segmentally arched pediment carried on console brackets
and flanked by sash windows with margin lights in moulded
architraves. Central upper window in stressed architrave carried
on console brackets. Angle quoins and heavy moulding to
pediment. Sash windows in side elevations.
INTERIOR has galleries on all sides with panelled
balustrades. Gallery at front with canted angles to link with
side galleries. Front and side galleries supported on slender
cast-iron columns with moulded caps and contain original early
C19 box pews. Late 19th Century timber podium pulpit with span
arcade balustrade set against wall supporting rear gallery.
Plaster ceiling with moulded cornice and central moulded vented
roundel. Open roof above rear gallery and organ. Wall tablet
commemorating James Mainwaring (died 1891) with three glazed
ceramic panels containing central bas-relief portrait and side
inscriptions set in a white glazed ceramic frame of Ionic
pilasters on moulded base and cornice with segmental pediment
over enclosing inscription, side urns.
HISTORY: The chapel was built in 1820 by Jesse
Shirley replacing an earlier Methodist Chapel of 1808 located in
a field south of Etruria. The chapel was extended and refitted
in the late C19. A separate Sunday school located to the rear of
the chapel and built in 1864 is now in separate ownership and is
not listed. This is a good survival of a Methodist chapel, with
a well-mannered façade and an intact interior. The building also
obviously has historical interest within the context of Etruria.
Formerly known as: Etruria
Wedgwood Chapel ETRURIA OLD ROAD Hanley
Meetings of Methodists in Etruria took place in
private houses in the village in the late 18th century. The first
Wesleyan chapel was built in 1808 in a field south of Etruria.
In 1820 it was replaced by a new chapel on the
main road near the centre of the village which is still standing.
This is a brick building with a classical plastered front surmounted
by a pediment and a date tablet illustrated in the photos below.
The ground floor
shows a typical chapel layout of that period with a gallery above
which accommodated an average attendance of 150 in 1851
Memorials inside
Etruria Methodist Church
Jesse Shirley
/ George Smallwood
"A tablet recording Jesse Shirley, who died 1875, aged fifty-six,
says : " He was a kind husband and father and sincere friend and he
loved the house of prayer." Of Sarah, his widow, who died September
6th, 1891, aged sixty-eight years, it is recorded that she was an
"affectionate wife, mother and friend.""
"A white marble tablet is in memory of George Smallwood, who died
November 19th, 1924, aged sixty-seven. He was closely associated
with the Wesleyan Chapel and Sunday School all his life. Another
memorial is to Jane Smallwood who died March 3rd, 1927, aged
seventy-two, and there is a tablet in memory of Thomas Adams of
Etruria, who died March 9th, 1883, aged eighty-one. He was a
Wesleyan Sunday School Superintendent for fifty years."
James Mainwaring
memorial
"An
unusual earthenware tablet, complete with a portrait in relief, in
memory of James Mainwaring of Etruria, who died July 17th, 1891,
aged ninety-seven, is to be seen. He was for over seventy years a
class leader and local preacher and one of the first trustees of the
chapel."
photos: Steve Birks - May
2000
date tablet
Wesleyan Chapel 1820
A separate Sunday school located to the rear of
the chapel and built in 1864 is now in separate ownership and is
not listed
photos: Steve Birks - Jan
2008
  
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Etruria
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