For more than 150 years, from when there were only 100 houses in the new town, there has been a Methodist chapel in Saltburn, but few days in the Wesleyans’ history have been as momentous as today.
At 3pm today, they hold their last service in their church, built in 1905, on Milton Street as it has been sold to be used as an “events space” so that they can concentrate on the building next door, which is their original church built in 1865 by one of the Tees Valley’s finest and most controversial architects.
As with all things early Saltburn, the story is intertwined with Darlington.
It was Henry Pease, the railway promoter who had dreamed up the concept of a seaside railway resort, who laid the chapel’s foundation stone on December 12, 1864. “Mr Pease, in a very skilful and workmanlike manner, handled the trowel, spread the mortar and placed the stone in situ,” say the newspaper reports.
The chapel, which was to hold 500 people, cost £1,016. It was built out of the Peases’ distinctive buff bricks that were made at their Peases West brickworks near Crook, and it was designed by William Peachey, the architect of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (below).
Mr Peachey had built the first houses in Saltburn in 1861, followed by the railway station (below) and then the fabulous Zetland Hotel in 1863.
The Methodist chapel was opened on August 27, 1865. “The foundation was laid in December last, but owing to strikes among the men, the building was delayed,” say the short newspaper reports. Nevertheless, this may well have been the first permanent place of worship in the resort.
But the Peases suspected that the architect was bent, that he awarded contracts to builders who gave him backhanders, so they shunted him into a siding because they didn’t trust him.
In the mid 1870s, he was allowed another shot at the big time, designing Middlesbrough’s station, which was twice as marvellous as it is today because a German bomb destroyed half of it during the Second World War.
But even before the station was complete, Peachey – whose Baptist church on the Grange Road roundabout in Darlington is another classy construction – had been required to resign from the railway, along with all his backroom staff, because he had again been taking backhanders.
Aged 51 and in financial difficulty, he moved to Saltburn and tried to rehabilitate himself. He never got the chance to build on a grand scale again, although his final project in 1901 was the red brick post office in Station Street opposite the Queens Head Hotel, which gives hints to his genius.
He died in 1904 so when the Methodists wanted to extend their church, they awarded the contract to Garside & Pennington, a firm of Pontefract architects who designed many chapels, theatres and pubs in their West Yorkshire home.
It is their church where, after 99 years, the last service is being held today, but the proceeds from its sale are going towards revamping Mr Peachey’s 159-year-old classic nonconformist chapel next door.
READ MORE ABOUT THE TALENTED MR PEACHEY:
- THE RISE AND FALL OF WILLIAM PEACHEY
- A DAY OF CROQUET, HERRING AND SEVERED LIMBS AS DARLINGTON BAPTIST CHURCH OPENS
- AN UNLUCKY BRAKE AT MR PEACHEY'S ENGINE SHED LEAVES ONE MAN DEAD
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