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Our History

Our earliest information dates from 1826 when Henry Wood and his son Eli, Isaac Bennett, John William Garside and Joel Howard held their Wesleyan Methodist Sunday School in the barn at Broadhursts's Farm (later to become Jackson's Farm) on Windlehurst Old Road. We still have an order of service sheet from this period dated 1827.
The group were eager to expand their pioneering work and in 1846 the first Windlehurst Wesleyan Methodist Sunday School was built. It stood directly across the road from where we are at present and the original carved foundation stone is still to be seen in the grounds of the present church.

The old Chapel & Sunday School building, circa 1880
The photograph above shows the old chapel building. When first built, it was an independent chapel with supervision from the New Mills Circuit. Nearly 40 years later the membership had increased to such an extent at the old chapel that building a new chapel became a necessity. The new site occupied seven hundred and eighty square yards and the new chapel cost £1,200.
Locals digging out the footings for the current Chapel, circa 1891/1892

The site of the current Chapel during early building works, circa 1891/1892

Two photographs above from this period show the site being cleared and the digging of the footings for the foundations. They date from the early 1890s.
The hamlet of Windlehurst was at this time a cluster of farms and cottages around the old hall. There is no record available of the business of raising the incredible sum of £1,200 to complete the building of the chapel and we understand that it came from gifts which by present standards would seem small but no doubt represented a very large contribution from people of this modest hamlet and its neighbours.