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.