Methodism in Everton
The former Methodist chapel in Everton Road, Gamlingay February 2013
It is not the practice of these pages to include buildings in other counties but the Wesleyan Methodist chapel for Everton is an exception. Edwin Welch researched the history of registrations in Bedfordshire for Bedfordshire Historical Records Society Volume 75 Bedfordshire Chapels and Meeting Houses [published in 1996] and found that the house of John Smith was registered in July 1824 by minister Aquila Barber [ABN1/2; ABN2/209 and ABN3/3]. In January 1825 Smith’s house was again registered, this time by William Brocklehurst of Saint Neots [Huntingdonshire], the minister and by James Golding [ABN1/2, ABN2/218, ABN3/3].
The original chapel was built in 1833 and sold in 1865. The foundation stone of the second Wesleyan chapel was laid in 1877 and that of the third on 24th July 1883. The building is on the border between Everton and the Cambridgeshire parish of Gamlingay, and actually just inside the latter parish in Everton Road, also close to the parish boundary with Potton. This third chapel was first known (correctly) as Gamlingay Heath and later as Everton and Gamlingay Heath.
In 1932 the Wesleyans joined with the United Methodists and Primitive Methodists to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain. Everton and Gamlingay Heath chapel closed in 1992 and is now [2017] a private house. During its 20th century incarnation the Wesleyan chapel was part of the Saint Neots Circuit to 1903, then the Huntingdonshire Mission from 1903 to 1933, the Saint Neots Circuit again until 1966 and latterly the Biggleswade Circuit until the chapel closed.
Bedfordshire Archive and Record Service has the following chapel records:
- MB2/EVN/6/2196: list of deeds of the chapel: 1877-1950;
- MB2/EVN/1/2195: baptism register: 1885-1989;
- MB2/EVN/2/1135: trustees’ minute book: 1907-1933;
- MB2/EVN/2/1136: trustees’ minute book: 1931-1952;
- MB2/EVN/10/1137: programme for the opening of the new organ: 1946;
- MB2/EVN/6/2893: file on the sale of the chapel: 1990-1995.