Our town through time: a brief history of Chesterfield chapels and churches

A heritage guide to Chesterfield with historian Philip Riden

Transcript

00:00Hello, I'm Philip Ryden. I'm the editor of the Victoria County History in Derbyshire,

00:05and I have a long-standing interest in the history of Chesterfield, my hometown.

00:09I've been asked to say something about some of the more interesting buildings in the town centre.

00:14I'm standing here in the garden of Eldiard Chapel. This is the oldest non-conformance place of worship

00:19in Chesterfield, built in 1694. There used to be a Quaker meeting house just a few yards away

00:25on Saltergate, whose site is now occupied by the multi-storey car park. This chapel on Eldiard

00:32was built by a dissenting congregation who later divided into Independents and Presbyterians.

00:39They both went their separate ways, although both denominations are still represented in

00:43Chesterfield, and this chapel was taken over in the early 19th century by the Unitarian Church,

00:48who still worship here. In the 1820s, a two-storey school building was added on the Saltergate

00:55frontage of the property, but the meeting house itself remains relatively unaltered as a very

01:00nice example of the first generation of dissenting meeting houses in towns like Chesterfield.

01:06Here in Saltergate, behind me, you can see the big Wesleyan Methodist Church of 1871. This isn't the

01:14first Methodist Church in Chesterfield, but since the 1870s it's been the central Methodist Church,

01:19the first the Wesleyans and now the United Methodist Church. It's a classical building,

01:26whereas the majority of chapels in Chesterfield are Gothic rather than classical. It's still in use for

01:32worship today. Behind me is the Primitive Methodist Church of 1881. Like the Wesleyan Methodist Church

01:39on the other side of the donut roundabout, it's the successor to several smaller buildings dating from

01:45the earlier 19th century. It makes a contrast with the Wesleyan Building, whereas that's

01:50a classical stone-fronted building. This is Gothic built in brick with some stone decorations. It was

01:57closed many years ago, has been used for various things and has now been empty for several years,

02:02awaiting somebody to find a new use for it.