[former] [English] Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Beatrice Street, Oswestry The foundation stones of this gothic chapel were laid on the 9th June 1870. Underneath one of the stones a bottle was placed containing a parchment document, a local newspaper, the "Methodist Recorder", a circuit plan and coins of 1870 issue. The building contractor for the chapel was Mr John Ward of Oswestry; the architect was Mr W. H. Spaull of Oswestry who designed it in the "early English style". The chapel was built of Cefn stone and the stonemason was Mr Briscoe. The glasswork was done by Frank Towler of Ellesmere. The chapel had a tower and spire, 83 ft tall, with 5 buttreses at the angles. The external measurements were 70 ft long by 35 ft wide. The interior, which seated about 440 worshippers, was without any galleries but there was a nave and transepts and an apse at the back of the pulpit, plus a basement for schoolrooms and a vestry. The cost of the building was about £2000. The chapel opened on the 28th February 1871. In 1898 the chapel needed renovating, including repairs to the organ, all costing a total of £325. The chapel has closed and was demolished in March 1967. There are some dramatic photographs of the demolition in the "Border Counties Advertiser" of 4th March 1967. There is a drawing of the chapel in the "Oswestry Advertiser" of the 15th June 1870 on page 6. There are three photographs of the chapel (including one of it being demolished) on the Oswestry Family and Local History Group website: www.oswestrygenealogy.org.uk Grid ref: SJ 292298 There was a previous Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Coney Green (off Salop Road) which was built in 1811 & was described as "a good brick structure", without galleries and with room for 400 worshippers. It was described in another source as being a "plain brick building". The chapel was opened for worship at ten o'clock on Sunday 26th January 1812. The chapel does not appear in the 1851 Religious Census. After the building of the new chapel (above, 1870), the old building was sold to the "Good Templars", a temperance organisation, in 1872 for £150. They sold the building in 1890 and by 1924 it had become a cinema. Grid ref: SJ 292296

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