Littleborough’s Lost Chapels
The Littleborough Area has a long history of non-conformist worship being blessed with around 20 chapels of which only four remain as places of worship with five still extant in use as houses and one as a hairdressers. The remainder have now been demolished to be replaced by housing, a nursing home or left as green spaces. The Society’s collection numerous booklets recalling key anniversary services, bazaars or other social and religious event as well as photographic remainders of their existence. This page covers those chapels in in Littleborough and Durn
Durn Baptist church
Methodical Piazza next the Viaduct.
Victoria Street Wesleyan Chapel and the
United Methodist Chapel on Church Street,
Other lost chapels were located at
Summit and Calderbrook
Shore, Caldermoor (Zion) and Croft
Featherstall, Stubley and Rakewood
Rechabites
Durn Baptist Chapel (below left)
The Methodical Piazza was built 1805, the first such building in Littleborough. When the railway viaduct was built the chapel was accessed by a small bridge over the River Roch. However, noise from the trains meant services were increasingly disturbed and the Chapel closed in 1851. The new chapel was in Victoria St and is shown next
Church Street United Methodist
Originating from 1866/7, this church underwent many changes and rebuilding including the provision of a new school in Peel St opened in 1873. The original chapel was later converted to become the ‘Manse’. The ‘new’ chapel (pictured adjacent to the ‘Manse’) was closed in 1939 following the Union of Methodists churches in 1932. The Church Street chapel was subsequently partly demolished being used as a haulage depot for many years. Even those remains have
have now been replaced by apartments. The Manse, however, remains as Holden’s Funeral Home together with the adjacent cottage.
For more details on the Schools connected to the various chapels see here
Summit and Calderbrook
