Whitefield's Tabernacle, Moorfields (also known as Moorfields Tabernacle) is a former church at the corner of Tabernacle Street and Leonard Street,
Moorfields
Moorfields was an open space, partly in the City of London, lying adjacent to – and outside – its northern wall, near the eponymous Moorgate. It was known for its marshy conditions, the result of the defensive wall acting like a dam, i ...
,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, England. The first church on the site was a wooden building erected by followers of the evangelical preacher
George Whitefield in 1741. This was replaced by a brick building in 1753.
John Wesley preached a sermon "On the death of the Rev Mr George Whitefield" both here and at
Whitefield's Tabernacle, Tottenham Court Road
The American International Church, currently located at the Whitefield Memorial Church on Tottenham Court Road in London, was established to cater for American expatriates resident in London. Organised in the American denominational tradition, th ...
in 1770.
The church was rebuilt in stone over a century later in 1868, to a robust
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
design by C. G. Searle & Son.
Immediately west of the church itself (in Leonard Street) a Sunday School was built. The foundation stone of the 1868 building reads: "Near this spot stood the Tabernacle built by the Rev. George Whitefield in 1753: 115 years afterward it was taken down and in its place this building was erected."
In 1907 a successor church opened near
Alexandra Park, north London: this was known initially as Whitefield Tabernacle, but from 1922 as Alexandra Park
Congregational
Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs it ...
Church. Many members of the Moorfields congregation transferred their allegiance, and numerous benefactions were also transferred. The Moorfields Tabernacle building was taken over by the nearby
Central Foundation Boys' Grammar School.
[ The Alexandra Park church was converted into flats in 2004.]
References
External links
Location map
Churches in the London Borough of Islington
Former Methodist churches in the United Kingdom
Methodist churches in London
Congregational churches in London
Churches completed in 1868
1741 establishments in England
18th-century Methodist church buildings
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