The Wesleyan Church is a former

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

church for the town of

Aldershot Aldershot () is a town in Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the Engli ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire is ...

. Closed in 1988 the building has been a

Grade II* listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

since 30 April 1981.The Wesleyan Methodist Church, Aldershot
- the

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked ...

Listed Buildings database In use today as offices, a dental studio and a gymnasium, the former Wesleyan Church is situated on the corner of Grosvenor Road and Queens Road in

Early Methodism in Aldershot

The Rev Dr William Harris Rule came to Aldershot in 1856 to open Methodist work among the troops, remaining until 1865 and working in the town as a contemporary of missioner Mrs Louisa Daniell. The Wesleyan Connexion provided funding for the construction of an iron chapel on a site located in Church Street off Queens Road which was dedicated on 10 July 1857. Subsequently, a chaplain’s house and a Soldiers' Home were added. Methodism was not a recognised "religious denomination" in Army returns and there was great opposition from the local Anglican chaplains who found him an irritant but Dr Rule was supported by Lieut-General William Knollys and by 1862 Methodism was accepted under "Other Protestants" and so the work could continue unhindered. The

Primitive Methodists The Primitive Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination with the holiness movement. It began in England in the early 19th century, with the influence of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834). In the United States, the Primit ...

at that time were served by chapels in Victoria Road (the now demolished Rotunda building built in 1876 and sold to the Reformed Episcopal Church of England in the mid 20th-century) and the Ebenezer Primitive Methodist chapel on Ash Road, built in 1885. Wesleyan Church Aldershot rear complex

However, boundary changes in the form of the high Wall around the south of the Camp isolated the Chapel which could now only be reached after a long walk and so the Rev Richard Watson Allen (1833-1914) secured a large site on the corner of Queens Road and Grosvenor Road in the centre of the developing town was within a few yards of the entrance to the barracks. Of this period it was later written:

"Mr Allen secured a large site in the centre of the town within two minutes’ walk of the main entrance into the Camp. Conference by formal vote gave him permission to appeal for and collect funds throughout the Connexion; and at once, with untiring energy and indomitable courage, he set to work. The result was that on one of the finest sites in Aldershot there was erected a magnificent church. Adjoining the church was built a Soldiers' Home, which at that date, was one of the best to be found in any command. This magnificent block of buildings--to it a Wesley Hall was later added by the civilian members of the congregation--is one of the finest in British Methodism, and stands today as a monument of the work done by Mr Allen during the years he was stationed at Aldershot."

Construction of the church building began in 1874 while the adjacent Soldiers' Home with lecture room, library, refreshment room and other accommodation was completed first and opened on 13 June 1875. The imposing Wesleyan Methodist Church on Grosvenor Road with its 100 foot tower was opened on 24 October 1877 with seating for 1,150 worshippers; the total cost of construction was £10,000.The History of Methodism in Aldershot - Aldershot Methodist Church website
/ref>

Design and features

Built to the design of William Willmer Pocock with local sandstone rubble dressed with

Bath stone Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate. Originally obtained from the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines under Combe Down, Somerset, England. Its honey colouring gives the World Heritage City ...

and partly built with brick at the rear with slate roofs and crested ridge tiles, the nave was built with aisles, transepts, a

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

with a tower at the north-west corner. The design is

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

enhanced with Early English, Decorated and

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It can ...

features. The main west window is Early English in style. The organ was installed in 1906 while the choir stalls and lectern were fitted after the

Methodist Union Methodist Union was the joining together of several of the larger British Methodist denominations. These were the Wesleyan Methodists, the Primitive Methodists, and the United Methodists. In 1932 a Uniting Conference met on 20 September in the R ...

of 1932 when the building had to accommodate a larger congregation after the smaller Primitive Methodist Rotunda chapel on Victoria Road in the town closed and its congregation moved to the Wesleyan buildings on Grosvenor Road and Ash Road. The prominent tower, described as " the only significant tower in the town", is a local landmark and visible for miles. The tower clock was installed in 1922 in memory of the Rev. Edward Pearce Lowry (1843-1921), father of the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

physical chemist Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical mecha ...

Thomas Martin Lowry Thomas Martin Lowry (; 26 October 1874 – 2 November 1936) was an English physical chemist who developed the Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory simultaneously with and independently of Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted and was a founder-member a ...

and Honorary Chaplain to the Forces of

Aldershot Command Aldershot () is a town in Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme northeast corner of the county, southwest of London. The area is administered by Rushmoor Borough Council. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Farnbo ...

from 1892 to 1919. The Rev Lowry is buried in

Aldershot Military Cemetery Aldershot Military Cemetery is a burial ground for military personnel, or ex-military personnel and their families, located in Aldershot Military Town, Hampshire. The cemetery was created in 1850s by the Royal Engineers during the building of A ...

.Bygone Aldershot Churches- Aldershot Civic Society website
/ref> Methodist Church Aldershot reredos

The nave is supported by columns of cast iron capped with

. The preserved

reredos A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images. The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for e ...

behind the now removed altar was created in mosaic and tiles and showed the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer. The reredos is in memory of Frances Penelope Wharton Middleton, the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Lewis Watson who fought at the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh C ...

in 1815 as a Major in the 69th Regiment. She is further commemorated on a brass plaque dated 1882 placed at the bottom of the reredos by her husband Richard Wharton Middleton of Leasingham Hall in

Leasingham Leasingham is a village and civil parish in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated less than north from Sleaford, and just off the A15. The hamlet of Roxholm lies to the north. When combined with Rauceby figures, ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

; he had also fought at Waterloo as an

Ensign An ensign is the national flag flown on a vessel to indicate nationality. The ensign is the largest flag, generally flown at the stern (rear) of the ship while in port. The naval ensign (also known as war ensign), used on warships, may be differ ...

The Methodist Union and after

The church with its Soldiers' Home and Hall served Methodist locals for over a hundred years while the support for servicemen provided by the Soldiers' Home was transferred to the Smith-Dorrien Home in 1925. When

Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan–Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charles W ...

and

Primitive Methodism The Primitive Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination with the holiness movement. It began in England in the early 19th century, with the influence of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834). In the United States, the Primit ...

united in the

in 1932 the

congregation in the town worshipped at the two Methodist churches on Grosvenor Road and the Ebenezer Primitive Methodist chapel on Ash Road until the closure of the latter in 1958 when it was sold as it no longer met the needs of the congregation. A plot of land opposite on the corner of Herrett Street and Stone Street was purchased and the stone-laying ceremony for a new all-purpose building took place on 26 April 1958. As it opened on to Stone Street that became its title. After the Grosvenor Road building was sold by the Aldershot Military Trust for £500,000 in 1988 the congregation joined other churches in the Methodist Circuit, some joining Stone Street when the name was changed to Aldershot Methodist Church. Subsequently changes were made to both the interior and exterior of the building to make it the functional building that it is today.Aldershot Ebenezer Primitive Methodist chapel - My Primitive Methodists database
/ref>M A Collier and R M Sherwood, ''Prim Aldershot'', Tentmaker Publications (2011) pgs 230-232 Since becoming redundant as a church in 1988 the Wesleyan Church on Grosvenor Road has been converted to a variety of uses including offices, a dental surgery and a gymnasium. The conversion was made by architects from the Farnham company of Ambergrange Ltd who won the Rushmoor Civic Design Award in 1992, commemorated in the stone behind the sign.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aldershot, Wesleyan Church Aldershot 1874 establishments in England Buildings and structures in Aldershot Churches in Aldershot Methodist churches in Hampshire Grade II* listed churches in Hampshire Churches completed in 1877

Early Methodism in Aldershot

Design and features

The Methodist Union and after

See also

References