Cleckheaton Wesleyan Methodist Church

Methodist services held at Mr Booth's house in Cleckheaton from 1745 - 1772. John Wesley preached in the Old Whitechapel [Church of England] in Cleckheaton July 1770; Rev Jonas Eastwood, the incumbent of Whitechapel, 1752 - 1772, was sympathetic to Methodism. Methodist local preachers preached in Cleckheaton both in the open air and in Samuel Law's barn at the top of Coalpit lane in the 1700's. Services held at John Houldsworth's cottage in Albion Street known as Pear Tree from the later 1700's - 1811. Chapel was built in Dewsbury Road at Marsh in 1811 and the impetus for the building of the chapel was the revivial work of reverend William Bramwell in the Spen Valley area. The Sunday School was built in School Street [later called Cheapside]in 1840. Most of the members became Wesleyan Reformers c1849 and the few remaining Wesleyans could not maintain the chapel and eventually sold it to the Wesleyan Reformers. The Wesleyans built a new chapel in Northgate, 1853, by the 1880's the chapel was too small but there was no room to expand in Northgate. The new chapel was built in Whitecliffe Road, 1888 - 1889 and opened in 1889. The old chapel in Northgate was used by the YMCA by 1891; this building was later demolished and Churchill House was built on the site. The chapel became known as Whitcliffe Road Methodist Church from 1930's and closed in 1966 and the remaining congregation joined Central Methodist Church.