Vale Royal Methodist Church, also historically Vale Royal Chapel and Vale Royal Wesleyan Methodist Church, was a

Methodist Church of Great Britain The Methodist Church of Great Britain is a Protestantism, Protestant List of Christian denominations, Christian denomination in Britain, and the mother church to Methodism, Methodists worldwide. It participates in the World Methodist Council, an ...

parish church in

Royal Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Rocks. ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England. It was opened in 1873 and stopped being used as a church on Easter 2015. It was later renovated to become a gym.

History

The founder of

Methodism Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's br ...

John Wesley John Wesley (; 2 March 1791) was an English people, English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The soci ...

, visited Tunbridge Wells in his early years as a preacher and gained a small congregation there. Meetings initially took place in the

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

chapel at Little Mount Sion, which had opened in 1721; Wesley preached there "on several occasions". The congregation of the Wesleyan Methodist Church purchased land on what is now Vale Road for a small chapel in 1812 and worshipped in an inclusive way by also using

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

liturgy during Sunday morning services by 1863. Due to the growth of the congregation, they expanded the original chapel twice, but eventually required larger premises. Work began in 1872 and the church opened on 3 June 1873 at a cost of £5,000. It was built to designs by the architect

Charles Bell Sir Charles Bell (12 November 177428 April 1842) was a Scotland, Scottish surgeon, anatomist, physiologist, neurologist, artist, and philosophical theologian. He is noted for discovering the difference between sensory nerves and motor nerves in ...

and was built by the firm of Willicombe and Oakley. The church's organ was installed in 1883 and was opened by

William Thomas Best William Thomas Best (13 August 182610 May 1897) was an English organist and composer. Life He was born at Carlisle, Cumberland, the son of William Best, a local solicitor.Henry Charles Lahee (1903) ''The Organ and Its Masters'', L. C. Page, B ...

. In the 1930s, the majority of Vale Royal's stained glass windows were installed.

Closure

Due to the cost of maintenance of the church building, the Vale Royal congregation had proposed demolition and rebuilding of the church with 14 flats on the site in 2010. However this proposal was rejected the following year by

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council Tunbridge may refer to the following places: * Tunbridge, Illinois, United States * Tunbridge, North Dakota, see Locations in the United States with an English name#North Dakota * Tunbridge, Tasmania, Australia * Tunbridge, Vermont, United States ...

as "out of character" with the local area. Eventually the congregation put the church up for sale, but the council noted that though the church was not a

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

, it was a local heritage asset. The church held its last service on Easter Day in 2015 before closing and the Methodist congregation moved to worship at a nearby

United Reformed Church The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. As of 2022 it has approximately 40,000 members in 1,284 congregations with 334 stipendiary ministers. Origins and history The United Reformed Church resulte ...

. The church eventually sold at auction for £900,000 in 2016, however the money went to the Methodist Church's headquarters and not the local congregation. The church was later adapted into a gym with the building kept standing. Vale Royal's licence to conduct marriages and Christian worship services within it, which was granted on 17 July 1873, was formally revoked in 2018.

Architecture

Charles Bell, a London-based architect, designed Vale Royal Methodist Church in a style described as "early

French Gothic French Gothic architecture is an architectural style which emerged in France in 1140, and was dominant until the mid-16th century. The most notable examples are the great Gothic cathedrals of France, including Notre-Dame Cathedral, Reims Cathedra ...

evival or as

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It can ...

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

. It is of local Kentish ragstone laid in the form of random polygonal masonry, and there are dressings of paler

Bath stone Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate. Originally obtained from the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines under Combe Down, Somerset, England. Its honey colouring gives the World Heritage City of ...

. The roof is laid with slate tiles. The gabled façade has corner buttresses which rise to form tall

finial A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a d ...

s or

pinnacles A pinnacle is an architectural element originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was mainly ...

, and there is

tracery Tracery is an architecture, architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of Molding (decorative), moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the s ...

in the windows. The entrance porch is "raised high above street level" and has a triple archway.

References

Bibliography

* * {{refend Former Methodist churches in the United Kingdom Buildings and structures in Royal Tunbridge Wells Methodist churches in Kent 19th-century Methodist church buildings 1873 establishments in England 2015 disestablishments in England Gyms in the United Kingdom Churches completed in 1873

History

Closure

Architecture

See also

References

Bibliography