During the early part of the nineteenth century Ivybridge found it difficult to appoint a chaplain and at times St. Johns Church was without anyone at all, largely due to very low remuneration. Worshippers were giving up paying the rent for their pews and this was money which the procurement of a chaplain depended upon. Local people were complaining that this was causing many to drift away to the Wesleyan movement. A local schoolteacher, Miss Powell, who lived in Fore Street where she provided a small school, also complained that there was nowhere for her children to attend Sunday School.
During this difficult time the Wesleyans in Ivybridge established their own chapel on a piece of ground in the village close to Miss Powell’s house. Sir John Rogers, Lord of the Manor, had provided the plot of land in 1812 for the building of the Methodist meeting house or chapel. This original site is now called Chapel Place. The Methodist Chapel was registered on 13 January 1813 with the Bishop of Exeter. The building seated 120 people at a time when the population of Ivybridge was about 1,000 in total.
William Sherwell ‘The first Methodist in Ivybridge’
William Sherwell will always be remembered as the driving force in building a Methodist Chapel in Ivybridge. He was a shopkeeper and preacher. He also became the first superintendent of the Sunday school in 1812. A memorial to William exists in the present Methodist church to the right of the altar.
In 1860, John Allen, the owner of Stowford Paper Mill, along with other members of the congregation, rebuilt and enlarged the chapel at a cost of around £900. It was recorded that the construction did not involve the assistance of a professional architect but rather Mr Patterson, the chief engineer at Stowford Paper Mills, whilst the building work was undertaken by men employed at the same establishment. It provided seating for 300 on the ground floor with additional room for 100 children in a gallery. By now the population of the parish had reached 1,700. A plaque with the date 1860 was added to the front façade.
At first the enlarged chapel seemed to be quite adequate for the needs of the Wesleyan congregation but John Allen, now a wealthy businessman, was determined to give the Wesleyans at Ivybridge a worthier ‘local habitation’ and a more important name. To this end he offered to build a new chapel at his expense. The design of the building was entrusted to Messrs. Norman and Hine, who were given considerable latitude regarding the appearance. Alfred Norman and James Hine were reputable architects having previously designed the much acclaimed Plymouth Guildhall which was officially opened on 13 August 1874 at a cost of some £70,000. They had also designed other Wesleyan chapels including the ones at Launceston and South Petherwin.
It was estimated that the building would cost £4,000 with an additional £1,000 required for the site. The building was to be pure Gothic style and designed to accommodate 550 people. It was to be built of limestone with Portland dressing, and the interior of the chapel was to be ‘beautifully ornamented, and efficiently ventilated and lighted’.
The most notable feature of the building was to be a church tower around 100 ft high and similar to one on the Methodist building at Torquay which had received great acclaim.
The cost of the new church at £5,000 was met entirely by the Allen family. The building contractor was Messrs. Blatchford and Son, of Tavistock who had previous experience of working with the architects at South Pertherwin. Alongside the church, John Allen had already built a row of ten cottages in the 1850s which provided accommodation for workers at the paper mill. Allen, a devout Methodist expected these families to attend church in return. These properties are referred to as ‘Allen’s cottages’ even today.
The ceremony of laying the memorial foundation stone of the new church took place on 15 July 1874. Many Wesleyans from Plymouth attended along with the Mayor of Plymouth, Mr Alfred Rooker.
Prominent Wesleyans of Ivybridge were also present including William Sherwell (a descendant of the first Methodist in Ivybridge) and the Allen family. John Allen Jnr gave a speech expressing his gratitude to the people of Ivybridge explaining that ‘the present building was to be raised for the promotion of the worship of God, and not with any idea of entering into competition with any evangelistic bodies represented in the town’. Mrs Edward Allen was then presented with an inscribed silver trowel by the two architects and the memorial stone was declared ‘well and duly laid’.
A speech from the Mayor, Mr Rooker, congratulated Ivybridge on the acquisition of such a valuable building and of possessing such generous inhabitants as the Allen family. Following the ceremony, the party adjourned to Mallett’s Assembly Rooms, the colloquial name for the London Hotel. A public tea was held, and it was ‘probably the most numerously attended tea meeting that had ever been held at Ivybridge, upwards of 300 people’.
The church was completed by 1875 and formerly handed over to the Wesleyan community on 5 January 1876. A large crowd of local worshippers along with a contingent from Plymouth and the surrounding neighbourhood attended the event. The local newspaper commenting that it was ‘ in all probability, the most handsome Wesleyan place of worship in the United Kingdom’.
The finished church was constructed of dark blue limestone, Portland stone and red Mansfield whilst the interior used Bath stone. The chancel and passages were paved with Minton tiles in ‘chocolate and green, with a fern border’. The chancel walls ‘richly decorated with vine, fruit and tree, painted in a gilded ground, and the lily and pomegranate being conspicuous. The chancel window and the windows in the road façade filled with stained glass of brilliant geometrical patterns’. The internal ornamental details, however, were incomplete.
