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Our Beginnings
Our beginnings are lost in the past. We know
that on the 7th day of July 1839 two sermons
were preached by a Rev. William Booth in the
Baptist Chapel at Lumb and collections were
taken in aid of the Wesleyan Methodist Sunday
School. At some stage later this early Methodist
society became part of the United Methodist
Church. The United Methodist Church at Lumb met
at the Liberal Club very close to the present
site of our Eden Methodist Church.
Perhaps a letter sent by Mr. Wilson Bridge to
apologise for not being able to attend the
Jubilee Celebrations at Eden in 1925 reminds us
of all the scholars who met 'up the steps' of
the Liberal club before our Eden Chapel was
built:
Dear Friend,
I was very glad to receive your kind
invitation to the celebrations at Eden, but I am
afraid that I shall not be able to be with you.
I remember quite distinctly going to school 'up
the steps' with my grandfather, George Bridge,
somewhere about 1850. There were very few
scholars. No electric light in those days,
candles and snuffers were the order and forms
without backs. The singing at the services was
accompanied by a good company of musicians. John
Sowerbutts was the leader and played the violin
cello, Mannassah, his son, played the serpent,
Joseph, another son played the ophilaide, also
John Whittles and James Burton violins on
special occasions. Even in those days there was
a system adopted for encouraging scholars to
attend school, small text cards being given to
scholars who were in time. When a certain number
were obtained these were exchanged for a large
card, and a specified number of large cards
entitled the scholar to a prize at Christmas. I
think I should be about twelve years of age when
we left Water and went to live at Bury, but I
can truly say that now at the age of 79 some of
my happiest memories are connected with Water
and the school 'up the steps', and I think I may
be pardoned for feeling some satisfaction in the
knowledge that my grandfather was the founder
of Eden U.M. Sunday School. ....
The letter continues but adds no more
information about the Sunday School. The letter
was published in the Waterfoot Times on Saturday
30th May 1925. In the same paper, at the same
date an account is given of a speech by Mr. John
Ashworth, of Rawtenstall. (the oldest Trustee).
This tells us about the beginnings of Eden
Chapel.
'... in a speech that was interlaced with
humorous sallies and amusing anecdotes, (he)
gave an outline of the events which led to the
decision to build Eden Chapel. There had, he
said, "been talk of "building a chapel, but the
final decision was the outcome of a sermon
preached in the 'room up the steps', by the Rev.
Samuel Sellars, whose text was 'All things are
possible to him that believeth'.
The time came when they commenced to have
meetings about the building of the new chapel,
and they gave themselves a great deal of work in
order to get it. The mason's work in the
building of the chapel was let to Messrs. John
and Henry Maden (both Baptists), Henry being
superintendent in the Sunday School and John a
teacher - both good men and true - and the
joiners work was let to Mr. John Whittaker, and
was carried out by him and his sons - James,
Robert and Whittaker Whittaker - who did their
work.
The front of the chapel was of Yorkshire
parpoints and came from Brighouse. The sides and
back were local stone, which came from Scout
Quarries. Francis Firth, who was a shoemaker,
acted as a kind of clerk of works and spent
weeks in looking after the building of Eden
Chapel and who had been paid at the rate of
sixpence per hour, would have a large sum to
draw. The plumbers work was done by Robert
Clegg snr., of Bacup, who was one of the noblest
gentlemen that the Bacup Circuit ever produced,
who became a trustee and gave them a donation of
£10. Mr. Francis Firth and Mr. Thomas Hargreaves
also gave a like sum each. Mr. James Henry
Hargreaves and he (Mr. Ashworth.) gave £5 each.
They were men of faith, and he was glad that so
many that had been connected with Eden were
distributed over so wide an area. The foundation
stones were laid by Mr. John Ed. Haworth and his
sister Mary Jane, and their father gave them
£100 towards the cost of the chapel, which was
opened in 1875.
The foundation stones were laid on Whit Saturday
1874.
Our Much Changing Property
Trustees meeting held October 19th 1873 when the
following resolutions were passed:
1st that the proposed new chapel shall
accommodate not less than three hundred persons.
2nd that the costs do not exceed six hundred
pounds.
3rd that the material for the outside wall be
Yorkshire parpoints and inside common bricks.
4th that Messrs. Russell and Whittaker be
architects.
These were the minutes that brought our chapel
into being.
The congregation was informed that they would be
waited upon for their subscription and a
thousand envelopes were obtained. Promissory
Notes were taken out to the value of £420. The
contractors were paid after each stage of their
work was completed. On 27th October 1874 it was
arranged that a Mr. Barnes and a Mr. Hargreaves
'go to Newchurch a begging on Saturday next'.
Each meeting of the trustees was chaired by a
new chairman and there seems to have been much
rescinding of previous minutes. However, the
corner stones were laid on Whit-Saturday 1874,
and the first services were held on 27th June
1875 when Mr, I. Mather was booked to preach in
the afternoon.
Pew rents were charged starting at one shilling
at the front and they were to rise by a penny
row by row until they got to the back except
those closest to the vestibule which were to be
one shilling and seven pence and the three pews
on the flat were to be one and six pence. All
these prices were per sitting.
The original building consisted of a plain
chapel with a large worship area a small
vestibule and an elevated choir and pulpit at
the front of the chapel. Underneath the elevated
choir stalls were two vestries both heated by
small coal fires. There was a heating apparatus
for the main chapel but it is not clear what
this could have been. A small organ was given to
the chapel and the front pipes were renewed.
Prior to 1911 there were many great thoughts
about building an additional Sunday School at
the back of the present premises but fortunately
there was a disagreement between the Landlord
and the tenant of the land which the chapel
needed and this prevented it being acquired for
the chapel. This meant that any additional land
had to be acquired on the original site so the
building was altered by taking out a side wall
and extending it as far as possible towards the
boundary wall. This had the advantage that there
would be no greater ground rent to be paid. The
church and Sunday School were then divided by
partition. The vestries were also changed in
some way to make them larger and less stuffy and
a new heating system was put in. The cost of
all this was only £800, £500 of which was raised
by the time of the opening in 1911.
The main object of this major reconstruction was
not to accommodate a larger number of people but
it was to make the building more convenient. The
church itself could now be kept free from
entertainment and the vestries were now more
comfortable. Shortly afterwards the new chapel
was fitted out with a new organ. As on the
occasion of the new opening of the new chapel
there was a spirit of co-operation between the
churches in the valley. At the opening ceremony
the Vicar of Lumb church had been there to
welcome the improvements and to remind the
people that some were already thinking in terms
of church unity even though he could only think
in terms of spiritual unity. The Rev. P.F.
Chambers from the Baptists was also there and it
was this gentleman who had special knowledge of
organs and was able to help in the selection of
this new organ for our Eden chapel.
In the 1950's there was more talk about the
modernisation of our buildings but it was all
talk until one of the menbers began ripping out
the choir stalls and forced the issue. This
time the choir stalls and vestries were taken
out and the choir was rearranged at the side. A
new pulpit was acquired from the now closed
Bethesda church and a wooden rail was brought
from Bethesda to act as the communion rail at
Eden.
Various gift days and efforts have enabled us
just to keep the building heated and in
sufficient repair to keep the place going but
with the de-population of the area and the
decline in church going generally the building
has suffered and deteriorated to some degree.
This is particularly true of its state of
decoration. Last year a Gift Day raised a
little over £150 and a legacy has helped to keep
us well into the black for the present on the
trust account. But some of this money has gone
on essential repairs, a small amount of
re-wiring and the purchase of new water heaters.
Our Sabbath or Sunday School
People have been talking of the 'old days' since
1897 with regard to the work of our Sunday
School. It was in that year that there was a
Sunday School Reunion. Two hundred and twenty
sat down to tea and the chapel was about full at
the time of the evening meeting. Mr, James
Patchett of Bacup who was a former scholar
presided and the written account of the occasion
states that, 'Mr. Patchett, who appeared to be
labouring under deep emotion, spoke of his
connection with our school 37 years ago, when
the school was in the upper room where the
Liberal Club now stands'.
In 1911 a separate Sunday School was made by
building on a boundary wall and enclosing part
of the chapel. In the years leading up to 1925
the numbers in the Sunday School 'varied between
120 and 150'. Some of our older members tell of
the ministers taking a more active part in the
life of the Sunday School than is currently
possible. It appears that the minister would
preach in the Sunday School for conversions.
One of the class-meetings also met outside the
chapel buildings in one of the cellar-houses at
Graver Weir but these meetings were different
from those taken by the minister in that they
were 'more down to earth' as one of our number
put it. They were more simply devotional and
less evangelical in impact but they are well
remembered and treasured by those who attended
them. There are memories of fear, not of the
earlier hell-fire preaching, but of those who
taught in the Sunday School. The teachers in
earlier times had none of our modern inhibitions
about discipline and the cold sweat that broke
out on the forehead in a Sunday School class
many years ago has a place in the memory of some
of our members.
Today in much freer times when the children
sometimes try to rule and the teachers have to
struggle to maintain a reasonable discipline
much is gained in freedom and something is lost.
Somehow it is difficult for the child to become
aware of the absolute seriousness of his or her
need to follow Jesus. This is in no way the
fault of the teachers it is the atmosphere of
the times in which we live. But as our teaching
methods have progressed there is more thought
put in to helping the child to really understand
by finding points of contact with the childs own
experience. Gone are the days when the adult
would pontificate and the child would have no
option but to accept. Our School is much smaller
now numbering no more than thirty or so scholars
but the smaller numbers allow for more
individual attention. The great failing is,
however, that the parents do not come and a
precious setting of example is lost and this
often defeats the Sunday School teacher. The
area has also been seriously de-populated. |
