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The Old Baptist Chapel, Goodshaw Chapel, Rawtenstall, Lancs.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 April 2011
Extract
The Old Baptist Chapel at Goodshaw was taken into the care of the Department of the Environment in 1976. Since then, comprehensive repairs to the external fabric and the internal woodwork features have been undertaken. In advance of this necessary work, and during its course, much evidence was discovered to chart the history of the building and to interpret its present form.
The chapel was built in 1760, and was extended around 1800 to its present size. A schoolhouse, on the site of the attached minister's cottage, was added in 1809, but was demolished towards the end of the last century. Further internal alterations to provide for more seating within the galleries and box pews were carried out in the middle years of the nineteenth century, but the chapel went out of use soon after its centenary, in 1863. It has remained in a virtually intact state since that time, and is now preserved as an Ancient Monument.
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1986
References
Notes
1 Whitley, W. E., Baptists of North-western England (London and Preston, 1913)Google Scholar.
2 Sessions Order Book, Preston Assizes, 15 Jan. 1685, Whitley, , op. cit. (note 1), 71Google Scholar.
3 Whitley, , op. cit. (note 1), 72 fGoogle Scholar.
4 Jefferson, J., A Brief History of the Church and Congregation Worshipping in the Baptist Chapel, Goodshaw (Rawtenstall, 1860)Google Scholar. Jefferson was minister of the chapel of Goodshaw on the occasion of its centenary in 1860, and this account was published to mark that event. Much of the historical detail which follows in this paper draws on Jefferson's booklet.
5 The records of the Baptist Building Fund show that in 1801 an appeal was made among London Baptist churches and gentlemen for funds for the Goodshaw chapel building. As a result, £95. 6s. 6d. was raised. I am grateful to my father, the Revd B. J. Johnson, for this information.
6 ‘The Articles of Christian Religion, or a Confession of Faith, made and signed in the Year of Our Lord 1753 by that Particular Branch of Christ's Church assembling at Lumb in Rossendale’, manuscript in the possession of the present minister and trustees of the Goodshaw Baptist Church.
7 Newbigging, T., Lancashire Characters and Places (1891)Google Scholar.
8 Heap, Moses (of Rossendale, 1824-1913), ‘My Life and Times’, manuscript in possession of Rawtenstall Public Library), 52 fGoogle Scholar.
9 Ibid., 55.
10 Church Minute Books, entry for 5th November 1854.
11 ‘The “Questions and Answers” (on the appointment of Brother Nichols)’ (August 1836). Original manuscript in the hands of the minister and trustees of Goodshaw Baptist Church.
12 Edwards, L. Colin, ‘The Good Old Days at Goodshaw’, Rossendale Free Press, 12th April 1924 iet seqq.)Google Scholar.
13 There is a manuscript list of the names of the members of the church, recorded in 1837, in the possession of the minister and trustees of the Goodshaw Baptist Church. Against a number of these names of deacons and members is the record ‘suspended from Communion May 28th 1842; considered as withdrawn April 29th 1843’. Thelistalso records that a number of members also left on 29th August 1847 (with Nichols, whose last Baptism was performed on 27th September 1846).
14 Heap, Moses, op. cit. (note 8), 62–3Google Scholar.
15 Only the volumes of the Church Minute Books from 1849 onwards have survived in the possession of the minister and trustees. The author of a series of articles in the Rossendale Free Press in 1924 (the then minister of the church) clearly had access to earlier volumes (see note 12 above).
16 According to the Church Minute Books, the stove was fitted in 1865.
17 Records of these surveys will be retained in the Historic Plans Archive of the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission, and copies will be available for inspection in the National Monuments Record.
18 Edwards, , loc. cit. (note 12 above)Google Scholar.
19 The burial records, dating from 1847 onwards, are in the possession of the trustees of the chapel.
20 Church Minute Books, 1st May 1852.