Heritage

On 1 February, 1738, a sailing ship, The Samuel, dropped anchor off Deal and a few passengers came ashore in a rowing boat. Among them was a slight man in the dark clothes of a Church of England clergyman… John Wesley.

He was returning to England from a hazardous and disappointing trip to Georgia where he had worked among the American colonists. He had gone to America, less than two years earlier, to convert others, but found he was never converted to God himself.

Of his return to England, he wrote in his journal: “Toward evening was a calm night, but in the night a strong north wind brought us safe into the Downs. At four in the morning we took boat, and in half and hour landed at Deal; it being Wednesday, February 1… After reading prayers and explaining a portion of Scripture to a large company at the inn, I left Deal, and came in the evening to Faversham”.

It was on 24 May 1738 while “unwillingly” attending a meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, that John Wesley felt his heart “strangely warmed”. “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: and an assurance was given to me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death”.

John and his brother Charles – the founder of Methodism – made many visits to East Kent during their years of preaching.

John Wesley first came to Dover on 28 January 1756 and established his first society here. “I preached at noon at Dover to a very serious, but small, congregation. We afterwards walked to the Castle, on the top of a mountain”, he wrote. “It is an amazingly fine situation”.

In 1759 he again visited Dover and preached in “the new room” which was just finished, and the following year Charles Wesley preached in Biggin Street, and John made another visit, commenting: “Who would have expected to find here some of the best singers in England?”

He came again in 1764 and 1765 when he gave a stern rebuke to members of the Dover Society who were still busy as smugglers.

Up until this time, they had been meeting in a room at the Cooperage in Queen Street, but this was abandoned and the Society had its meeting house in Limekiln Street where two homes had been made into one.

In November 1767 he recorded: “The house would by no means contain the congregation. I have not found so much life here for many years”. And in November 1768, despite a storm: “Many were obliged to go away after the house was filled”.

John Wesley visited Dover again on Wednesday 5 December 1770 and climbed to the top of Shakespeare Cliff “with some difficulty”. There were many further visits between 1771 and 1788, and his last visit was in 1789 when he recorded: “The new house, large as it is, was far too small, so that many could not get in”.

The New House was built in Elizabeth Square, part of Elizabeth Street.

In 1806 a licence was authorised for a preaching place at Buckland. It was not a chapel, but in 1810 a Wesleyan Chapel was built at London Road, where Shades amusement arcade and pool hall now stands. This was the first attempt to provide accommodation for religious worship in Dover in the 19th Century outside the Church of England.

In 1823 St John’s Chapel was built by a Mr Iggulden for a congregation of Wesleyan Dissentients, in Middle Row, a narrow street near the Viaduct in the Pier District. This was transferred a few years later to the Independents.

The Chapel in Elizabeth Square proved too small, and in June 1834 the Wesleyans started to build a new chapel under the cliff in Snargate Street, next to the Grand Military Shaft. The foundation was laid on 3 June 1834, and it was opened for public worship just four months later.

Five years later another large chapel was built opposite the one at London Road. It is now the Four Seasons bingo hall. It was started in June 1839 and cost £1,839 to build. Completed that December, it was the first day school in the Buckland area.

In 1850, Mr Streiker Finnis, who built the first part of the district known as Tower Hamlets, gave the Wesleyans a site to build a chapel which was opened in that year, and is still going strong today.

The Primitive Methodists first missioned in Dover in 1848, but at that time they had only two small preaching places. One was in Round Tower Lane, again in the Pier District. It was off Oxenden Street which ran from Limekiln Street parallel with Strond Street. The Prims also met in a cowshed loft at Brook Street, which ran parallel with Peter Street and Bridge Street, and joined Bridge Street via Colebran Street, the end of which can still be seen.

They had also met in a cottage in Paul’s Place.

The Primitive Methodists’ first regular chapel was built in Peter Street in the year 1860, and was one of the Jubilee Chapels of the Primitive Methodist Commission.

In 1874, the Rev Thomas Russell laid the foundation stone of a chapel in Round Tower Street, near the spot where they had their first preaching place in Dover. But when the Dover and Deal railway was made in 1879, the chapel was bought by the railway company and demolished. There is also reference to a Primitive Methodist Chapel in nearby Strond Lane in 1858.

The Rev Russell, who built a home at Maxton, also had a Primitive Methodist Chapel built next to it, called the Maxton Tabernacle. Those who had been displaced by the demolition of the Round Tower Street chapel used the Wellington Hall in Snargate Street for their services until compensation money was used to build a church in Belgrave Road. The foundation stone was laid in 1882, and although no longer a chapel, the building still stands.

The Wesleyans, meanwhile, looked for a more central site than their premises at Snargate Street and Buckland, and bought part of a site of the old Priory.

They built Wesley Hall, which opened in November 1910. Seven years later it was bombed in an air raid and destroyed, and Wesley Church was then built on an adjoining site. This was also bombed, but later re-built.

It continued as a church until the 1970s when it was closed. The church - just off the roundabout at York Street and Folkestone Road – is now owned by Dover College, and has been re-named Menzies Hall.

Back at London Road, school rooms were added in 1928 when the building was enlarged, but this, too was damaged in the war. The part of its nearest London Road was demolished – it now forms a lay-by – and for many years the Sunday School met in the hall where Shades now is.

The Dover Methodist Circuit has changed shape many times over the years. In 1822, for example, the Dover circuit included Elham, Hythe, Sandgate, Dymchurch, Alkham and Lyminge. By 1855, it had extended to include Barham, Stelling, Wootton and Lydden.

Now the Dover and Deal Circuit has just five churches, London Road and Tower Hamlets in Dover, River, Shepherdswell and Trinity at Deal.

Over the years, the chapels at Snargate Street, Belgrave Road, Maxton, Alkham, and most recently Wesley, have been closed, and the closure and demolition of chapels at Hougham and elsewhere, has taken place.

Trinity Church at Deal is a combined Methodist/United Reformed Church, and is very thriving.

Sandwich – which had eight members in 1770 – was once described by John Wesley as “poor, dry, dead Sandwich – but I now found more hope for the poor people”.

Mahogany used in the construction of the pulpit at Snargate Street church in Dover – where Wesley once preached from – was the identical wood used for the pulpit which was later installed at the Wesley Church, and is now at the village chapel in Shepherdswell.