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Matlock Bridge Wesleyan Chapel,
Snitterton Road (formerly Smithy Lane),
Matlock, Derbyshire.

Cemeteries

We believe the Chapel did NOT have a graveyard.

Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

This Place of Worship was founded in 1840, but we understand it was closed by 1884.

This is the only one of two 19th century Methodist Chapels with an address of "Matlock Bridge" which I have been able to locate on Old Maps. In 1876-1880 it can be seen on the south side of Snitterton Road (then named "Smithy Lane"), a short distance west of the railway line, labelled as "Meth. Chap. (Wes.)" In 1899 it is labelled simply as "Chapel", by which time its replacement, on the south-east corner of the junction of Bank Road with Oak Street (now Oak Road) had been built.

The return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/449/2/7/21) describes a "Wesleyan Methodist Chapel" at Matlock Bridge erected as a separate building in 1840, used exclusively as a place of worship. It had free seating for 150 and 100 "other" sittings, and the estimated congregation on March 30th was 40 in the afternoon, and 44 Sunday Scholars attending (afternoon) class. There were no other services, and no statistics provided for the average attendance over the last 12 months. The return was completed by Joseph Hodgkinson, who described himself as "Trustee & Chapel Steward", and "Grocer, Matlock Bath, Derbyshire".

As indicated above, it was replaced later in the century by a new building in Bank Road. A notice was published in The London Gazette of 5th September 1884 (p.3998), indicating the new building - "Wesleyan Chapel, situate at Bank-road, Matlock Bridge" - was registered for marriages on 13th August, 1884, "being substituted for the building known as Wesleyan Chapel, Matlock Bridge, now disused".

This does not appear to have been the end of its life as a place of worship, however. Ann Andrews, on her excellent webpage of Matlock Churches and Chapels indicates that a few years later [1887] it was in use by a Free Methodist congregation, which thereafter disappears from the records. Then in 1975, Jehovah's Witnesses adopted the building, and an adjacent one to convert into a Kingdom Hall. They moved to a new site in 2008, and it has since been converted into apartments.

Denomination

Now or formerly Wesleyan Methodist.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here, or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Chapel was located at OS grid reference SK2959760137. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• Matlock Bridge Wesleyan Chapel, Matlock shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Matlock shown on a Google Map.
• Streetmap.co.uk (arrow on map shows the Place of Worship's location) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Bing (Ordnance Survey option) (verified 2018-10-13)
• Bing Maps ('Bird's Eye' View) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Ordnance Survey "getamap" (NB some of the 'Change Map' options may require a subscription) (verified 2018-10-15)
• OpenStreetMap (Maps © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA) (verified 2018-10-15)
• A Vision of Britain Through Time - useful for Boundary Changes (verified 2018-10-15)
• www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays) (verified 2018-10-15)

Resources

I have found many websites of use whilst compiling the information for this database. Here are some which deserve mention as being of special interest for Matlock, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• “The Andrews Pages”, featuring Ann Andrews' study of Matlock Churches and Chapels (null) (verified 2021-09-12)
• Notices of Civil Registration of Places of Worship for marriages are published in the London edition of The Gazette. Hint: search for registrations from 1998 by choosing 'Church' notices, and the option 'Registration for solemnising marriage'. (verified 2018-12-11)

The above links were selected and reviewed at the time I prepared the information, but please be aware their content may vary, or disappear entirely. These factors are outside my control.