It all started in a carpenter's workshop ...

 

Primitive Methodism gained a foothold in Dover in 1848 following a visit by the Rev. John Crow from Ramsgate who preached in the open air in the Pier district of the town. In 1849 services started - appropriately - in a carpenter's workshop in Limekiln Street. There was temporary accommodation in the Charlton area - a cowshed loft in Brook Street - and as early as 1851 preparations began to build a chapel in Peter Street. They had also met in a cottage in nearby Paul's Place. The Primitive Methodists' first regular chapel was built in Peter Street in 1860, atg a cost of £1,100, and it was one of their Jubilee Chapels.

 

But by 1898, the Chapel was in need of extensive and expensive repair, and in May 1898, the members decided to buy the site at the corner of London Road and Beaconsfield Road and build a new church. In 1901, the Minister of the time, the Rev. Isaac Dorricott wrote of the "stuffy and choky sensation" caused by lack of ventilation in the Peter Street school room. "It is very unhealthy when full of children and people. With a place so unattractive it scarcely seems possible either to enlarge of conserve our work amongst the young people. Indeed it requires considerable loyalty on the part of our young men and women; but we are thankful to say that loyalty exists."

 

He went on: "No less objectionable are the conditions in the immediate locality. The street at the point opposite the chapel - and not infrequently the chapel yard - is the assembling place for the most noisy children in the district, especially in week evenings. This, with the frequent shouting of street salesman, renders it next to impossible to conduct orderly worship."

 

The London Road church was opened for worship on New Year's Day 1902. At the time, it was described as: "61 feet by 37 feet inside, at the front end there is a gallery having three gothic arch openings supported by two pillars. The entire seating accommodation is about 400. On the remainder of the land are four rooms on the ground floor and covering these will be a large assembly room and two class rooms. It is proposed to heat the building by the hot water system and to light them by electricity." The total cost, including the land, was £5,200. The sale of the Peter Street Chapel raised £450 towards it.

 

In 1928 the building was enlarged to provide more schoolrooms. War damage led to the demolition of the part nearest London Road, leaving a church that could seat about 350. Unusually for a Methodist Church - especially a Primitive Methodist Church - stained glass windows had been added, many of them in memory of long-serving members who had died. These were also badly damaged and had to be restored after the war. For many years, the Sunday School met in premises a little further up London Road until 1961 when the church hall and rooms in Bartholomew Street were opened, linking up with the London Road church.

 

In 2016 the London Road church building was sold, and our congregation now meets in what was formerly our church hall, in Bartholomew Street, which has been transformed into a church.