Edgeware Road Church Centenary

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32313, 3 June 1970, Page 14

Edgeware Road Church Centenary

Celebrations to mark the centenary of the Wesley Methodist Church, Edgeware Road, will be held at the church from June 19 to 21.

On Friday, June 19, there will be a gathering for all persons who have been married in the church. The next afternoon there will be a tea after which members and visitors will be taken on a tour of the main Methodist centres in Christchurch, including churches, homes and institutions In the evening there will be a concert in the church hall. On the Sunday there will be special services at 8.30 a.m 11 a.m., and 4 p.m. After the last service there will be a buffet tea. Methodism in the St Albans district began in 1851 when prayer and class meetings were held in the home of Isaac Philpott on the site of the present English Park. In 1859 the first church building in St Albans was opened in St Albans Lane, now knotyn

as St Albans Street, opposite Coopers Road, now Somme Street The district grew rapidly, however, and after a special meeting it was decided to build two new churches, one on land offered to the church in St Albans Lane and the other to the east in Knightstown. The church in St Albans was opened in 1869 and is the precursor of the present St Albans church in Rugby Street. The other church opened on June 19, 1870, in Crescent Road, is the pre cursor of Wesley Church, Edgeware Road. The Crescent Road site is where the houses at 21 and 25 Trafalgar Street now stand. The Crescent Road church was built by John Rutland, a member of the Durham Street congregation, at a cost of about $3OO including the land. Almost immediately after the opening, however, the building was found to be too small

and another $3OO was spent on an extension opened ip 1871. The extended church seated about 130 people. The earliest membership return in December; 1872, shows that there was a membership of 13 and six years later it was only 21. The present Wesley Church in Edgeware Road was opened on November 18,1909, at a cost of about $2214. It was built to the same plans as the St/Kilda Methodist Church Dunedin, which was -completed three years earlier. About this time there were almost 200 Sunday school children and a senior church membership of 95. In the eight years after the opening of the church the membership rose to 155 although the Sunday school fell to 145. The parsonage was opened in 1924 and the Sunday school hall on October 13, 1928. The old church was let to the Salvation Army and in December, 1918, it was sold for removal. The section was sold six years later.