Hallelujah! Praise the name of God, praise the works of God.

Psalms 135:1

The Baldwin’s Gate Primitive Methodist Chapel, associated with the church’s Market Drayton branch, was built in 1859.

The chapel was opened on October 18th 1859. Preachers at the services and tea meeting included J Timmins who described the events in the Primitive Methodist magazine December 1859 page 743, Rev G Middleton, T Bennett and T Bateman (Chorley).
retrieved through the University of Oxford library

Methodism, a predominantly working-class Christian movement, had its beginnings in the open-air preaching of John Wesley in the mid-eighteen century. Primitive Methodism—which stressed a return to the plain origins of the Methodist movement—began in the Potteries region in 1807 with an open-air ‘camp’ meeting at the village of Mow Cop, on the border of Cheshire and Staffordshire, ten miles or so from Whitmore. The movement spread across the Midlands, and by the end of the century Primitive Methodism had more than 200,000 adherents.

One of the denomination’s lay preachers was Thomas Bennett, an agricultural labourer of Maer, near Baldwin’s Gate. Recorded as blind in the censuses of 1851 and 1861, Bennet preached for thirty years before his death in 1864.

The Staffordshire Advertiser 13 August 1864
retrieved from FindMyPast

The Baldwin’s Gate Chapel was built in 1859 as a galleried chapel in the Methodist style. The chapels of the Primitive Methodists were noted for their plain design. The Baldwin’s Gate chapel was brick, 33 feet by 23 feet inside and 20 feet from the floor to the wall plate. It cost £420 and could seat 160 people. There was a gallery on one end and nine windows in the chapel which was covered in fancy tiles. Thirty-one years after the erection of the original building, in1880 alterations and additions to the chapel were announced, and there were plans for a new porch, galleries and staircases.

Staffordshire Sentinel 19 January 1880
retrieved from FindMyPast
Baldwin’s Gate Chapel about 1911
from chapels of Newcastle under Lyme circuit
Christian Messenger 1911/346
retrieved from MyPrimitiveMethodists.org.uk

An 1881 newspaper report describes a Good Friday gathering at the chapel. Two hundred people listened to the choir and to addresses from the pulpit, afterwards enjoying a substantial tea.

Staffordshire Sentinel 23 April 1881

A 1911 report in the Christian Messenger described the Baldwin’s Gate chapel then part of the Newcastle-under-Lyme circuit :

BALDWIN’S GATE was built in 1859, at a cost of £420, with seating accommodation for 160. It has a sound and faithful Society, with Mr. T. Sargeant at its head; a man every inch of him.

The Baldwin’s Gate Primitive Methodist lay preacher ‘Mr T. Sargeant’ was Thomas Sargeant (1860-1941), a railway platelayer. He was born in Chapel Chorlton, a couple of miles from Whitmore, where he moved in 1890. He lived in one of the Station Cottages at Whitmore Heath. 

In 1932 British Primitive Methodists united with other branches of the Methodist Church.

In 1968 the Baldwin’s Gate chapel was converted to a single storey structure. The chapel, now part of the North Staffordshire Methodist Circuit, is still in use as a place of worship. 

Baldwin’s Gate Methodist Church 2016
Image from geograph.org

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