Building the chapel 

With the help and guidance of the mother churches and other Baptist churches in the district the young church flourished so that in 1869 the Trustees of the Sunday School gave them permission to use their building for worship, many Baptists being teachers at the school.  The Baptists showed their appreciation  by enlarging the school, at a cost to them of £200, to convert the building to both a house of worship and a Sunday School.

Later, it was felt that the needs of the growing church could be met better by the building of a chapel, and such was the loyalty and enthusiasm that by June 1890, the foundation stones of the present chapel were laid.

The conveyance document was dated 7th June 1890 and can be viewed here.

The chapel was opened for worship on Thursday, May 28th, 1891.  For three and a half years the people worked to reduce the debt on the church and to install a new organ, and one can imagine the despair of those workers when on Saturday, December 22nd, 1894, a great gale partly demolished the building. 

church roof missing


However, despair soon gave way to hope when offers of help started to flow in from Christians of all denominations.  Soon the work of restoring the church was started and completed so that by 1897 the church felt it could support a pastor of its own.

church and organ

In November, 1897, the Rev T R Lewis became the church's first pastor:  both church and pastor were blessed by the ministry.  Since then the church has been served by a succession of pastors, deacons, sunday school teachers and lay preachers, whose sole concern has been to present the Christian Gospel.