Wesleyan Methodism in Aspley Guise

The former Wesleyan Chapel in March 2007

The Wesleyan church in Aspley Guise was built in Mount Pleasant in 1813 and first certified with the Archdeaconry in 1815. It was renewed and repaired in 1881 by Poole of Woburn Sands at a cost of £93/13/- and a new American organ was installed in 1889.

The records of the chapel are held in Aylesbury at Buckinghamshire Record Office as it formed part of a circuit based on Wolverton and Bletchley and latterly based around Milton Keynes. The writer of this piece can remember attending Sunday School at the chapel in the early 1970s when it was run by Mrs.Fowler of Mount Pleasant ably assisted by Mr.Walsh. The chapel closed in 1978 and is now a private house.

On Sunday 30th March 1851 a census of all churches, chapels and preaching-houses of every denomination was undertaken in England and Wales. The results were published by Bedfordshire Historical Records Society in 1975 as Volume 54, edited by D.W.Bushby. The figures given for the Wesleyan chapel in Mount Pleasant were 50 attending in the afternoon and 60 in the evening, with 49 Sunday Scholars in the morning and 50 in the afternoon. The Chapel Steward William Beasley explained: "No Divine Service in this Chapel in the morning except the Sunday School". He reported the foundation date of the chapel as 1813 and gave the capacity as 160.