Tealby United Methodist Free Church

The United Methodist Free Church  in Tealby was opened in 1857.  In 2022 it is Chapel House at 32 Front Street. It still retains a carved datestone identifying it as a former United Methodist chapel.

Thanks to Hugh Nott for the story of the chapel.

Christopher Gunnell died in 1854 and was buried in Tealby on 23^rd April.  Christopher left the property to his widow, Sarah (nee Wilson). Sarah sold it to Robert Widdowson for £140 in 1855.  Robert had purchased the next door cottage (South View) in 1849 from John Veasey Cunnington (a schoolteacher).  Robert was a carpenter and builder and had been the principal trustee of the Wesleyan Reform Chapel in Kingsway in 1853.  Robert seems to have also been the principal trustee when the new Chapel belonging to the United Methodist Free Church was built in the garden of South View Cottage in 1857.   At the time of the 1851 census Robert (born in Bingham in 1811) was living in the Park with his wife Jane.  In 1841 he was a carpenter boarding with Ann Hanson, 57, cottager, in Chapel Street.   So even though he bought South View in 1849, he didn’t live there.

By 1867 Robert had moved to to Birmingham and the combined properties were conveyed for £480 to William Lacey acting as principal trustee.  William Lacey farmed at Grange Farm, Tealby.  The next year William conveyed the Chapel and 233 square yards of land to Isaac Lacey and fifteen other trustees for £10.  Six of the trustees had also been trustees of the Wesleyan Reform Chapel in Kingsway.  The trustees were from Tealby (4), Binbrook (2), North Willingham (2), Market Rasen (6), Owmby (1) and West Torrington (1).

In 1885 William Lacey was indebted to Joseph Stark for a mortgage of £442 plus interest and released the original land and two cottages (then in the occupation of William Lacey and widow Holden) to Joseph Stark.    Joseph was a builder from North Willingham and was also a trustee of the chapel.  In 1890 Joseph Stark sold the original property to Edward Clarke, a joiner from Tealby, for £120.

In the Todmorden Advertiser and Hebden Bridge Newsletter of Friday 13 July 1894, it was reported that the United Methodist Free Church Assembly gave consent to the sale of a chapel at Tealby, Market Rasen circuit, which had been closed some years.

In 1900 the Chapel was called the “Old Chapel” when it was also sold to Edward Clarke for £150.