Nonconformist Chapels in East Lindsey
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Nonconformist Chapels in East Lindsey Summary A survey of nonconformist chapels in East Lindsey was carried out from May to September 2013. The initial stage of this survey comprised a desk‐based assessment of documentary sources pertaining to nonconformist chapels, such as Ordnance Survey maps, censuses, secondary sources and other modern surveys of surviving nonconformist chapels. Using these sources it was possible to establish which chapels were still extant and which were not. The extant chapels were then visited and their construction materials, architectural features and present condition were assessed and recorded on a standardised form. This information was then collated in a database. The overwhelming majority of the chapels (92%) were used by the various Methodist groups that were active in the county. Of these groups the Wesleyan Methodists are the most widespread, with 112 chapels. Other Methodist groups built 68 of the surviving chapels, with only 19 buildings built by Baptists and other Dissenting groups. The survey identified 318 chapels having been built in East Lindsey between the late‐17th century and the early‐20th century, far more than any other district of Lincolnshire. Of these chapels 198 survive, again a far greater number than anywhere else in the county. 47 (24%) of the surviving chapels are still in use as places of worship, whereas 90 (45.5%) have been converted for residential use. Of the erest of th buildings 30 (15%) are disused and the rest are engaged in a variety of commercial and public functions. All of the surviving chapels are constructed from brick, and three‐quarters have gabled roofs. Slate roof coverings are common, as are gault brick dressings. Raised gables and dentil coursese ar two of the most widespread decorative features. While none of the surviving chapels in East Lindsey are constructed of stone it is widely used as a dressing material. Building styles are largely plain and vernacular until the mid‐19th century, when decoration and architect‐designed chapels become more and more common, beginning with a number of Classically‐influenced designs before a fashion for Gothic chapels became established in the late‐19th and early‐20th centuries. Introduction This survey was carried out as part of a continuing effort to record and evaluate the levels of preservation and the respective conditions of nonconformist places of worship in the county of Lincolnshire. As has been emphasised in the reports derived from the previous surveys, understanding nonconformist groups and their places of worship is important to understanding the religious and social history of the county as a whole as they are a key part of the historic environment of its landscape, settlements and communities. East Lindsey District lies in the north‐east of Lincolnshire, and is the largest district in the county, as well as the fifth largest in the country. It borders North East Lincolnshire and the River Humber to the north, with the North Sea to the east and Boston Borough to the south. To the west it borders West Lindsey and North Kesteven. The major towns of the district are Louth, Horncastle, Spilsby, Skegness, Alford and Mablethorpe The county is predominantly rural, and is divided diagonally east‐west by the Lincolnshire Wolds, a range of hills that runs through the district, roughly from Caistor to Spilsby. To the west, around Horncastle, is the clay vale, and to the south of Horncastle and Spilsby are the fens, reclaimed from the sea in the 18th and 19th centuries. The land to the east of the Wolds is dominated by the vast, flat expanse of the Lincolnshire Marsh, a reclaimed salt marsh which runs roughly from the Humber down to the Skegness. The district is relatively sparsely populated, and settlements, particularly in the east and south, can be quite remote. The economy is dominated by agriculture and, on the coast, tourism. The growth of nonconformity in East Lindsey was heavily influenced by the level of control that landlords could maintain over their tenants. In the west of the district, beyond the Wolds, we see fewer numbers of nonconformist places of worship than we do on the other side of the Wolds, in the east and south. Landlord control was far weaker, and the number of freeholders far greater in these regions, which made it far easier to establish nonconformist places of worship in later years. During the period of the development of nonconformism a great deal of social and economic change was occurring, no doubt exercising a not inconsiderable level of influence over the spread and development of nonconformism in the district. Methodology A survey of nonconformist chapels in East Lindsey was carried out from May to September 2013. The initial stage of this survey comprised a desk‐based assessment of documentary sources pertaining to nonconformist chapels, such as Ordnance Survey maps, censuses, secondary sources and other modern surveys of surviving nonconformist chapels. Using these sources it was possible to establish which chapels were still extant and which were not. The extant chapels were then visited and their construction materials, architectural features and present condition were assessed and recorded on a standardised form. The presence of associated buildings or features (such as Sunday schools or burial grounds) was also recorded. This information was then collated in a database. In addition to the form‐based survey, the creation of a photographic record of the exterior features of every building visited was also undertaken. The data was then input into the Historic Buildings, Sites and Monuments Record (HBSMR). Buildings that, in the desk‐based part of the survey, were identified as no longer being extant were also recorded and inputted into HBSMR. Any chapels that were demolished to make way for a new chapel on the same site were included in the record for the succeeding chapel. There were 244 chapels identified from the OS County Series Maps, dating from 1887 to 1937. Of these buildings 16 were identified from the 1887‐91 maps, 241 from the 1905‐7 maps, and one from the 1937 maps. Other sources revealed the existence of another 72 chapels that either fell out of usage as a chapel, or had not yet been built at the times that the Ordnance Survey maps were being produced. Of the 316 total nonconformist chapels that are known to have existed in East Lindsey at one time or another 198 are still extant. This report is formatted in a similar way to the previous reports to facilitate comparison of data. Denomination Dissenting Groups Dissenter groups were already well established in East Lindsey by the time of the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672. There were at least 10 established nonconformist churches or ministers at this time: five Independent or Congregational, three Presbyterian and two Baptist (Ambler, 2000, p.17, Fig. 2). All of these groups were located in the east and south of the district; more rural areas where landlords control were weakest. Quakers were also present in the district, with twelve locations being used for Friends' meetings by the 18th‐century (Ambler, 2000, p.31, Fig. 5). Again the Quakers seem to have been strongest in the east and south of the district, particularly in the south around Wainfleet, which, tellingly, is the location of the only extant Quaker chapel (Fig. 4; survey number 47106) in the district. The oldest extant chapel in the district is a former Baptist chapel. Dating from 1690 the chapel at Maltby‐le‐Marsh (Fig. 5; survey number 41461) was the first of at least 13 chapels that the Baptists were to build. Nine of them still stand, including the remarkably well preserved chapel at Monksthorpe (built 1701, Figs. 6, 7, 8 & 9; survey number 42235), complete with external baptistery. Baptists seem to be the most conspicuous Dissenter group in the district at this time, and, as shown by a spate of excommunications of Baptists in Croft and Burgh‐le‐Marsh in the 1660s, and another series of excommunications in Donington‐on‐Bain during the 1670s, Baptists were certainly prominent enough to invoke the ire of the Church (Ambler, 2000, p.21). Certainly in the 18th century the Baptists became the most widespread Dissenter group in the district, flourishing in the fens of the East and South (Ambler, 2000, p.87, Fig. 13). Presbyterianism never took hold in East Lindseye in th same way that other Dissenting groups did. There were three Presbyterian congregations in East Lindsey in 1672, and there were still only three in the 18th century. The only surviving Presbyterian chapel is a modest building of 1821 in Woodhall Spa (Fig. 14; survey number 48209). Likewise, Independent congregations were never able to gain a significant foothold in the district. Both of these groups were more closely associated with towns than the Baptists (Ambler in Bennett, 2001, p.74‐5). Indeed the five surviving Congregationalist chapels are located in towns. Other dissenting groups were represented, although in very small numbers. There was a Pentecostalist chapel in Louth (survey number 47187), now demolished, and a former Salvation Army chapel survives in Wainfleet All Saints (Fig. 10; survey number 48311). In Horncastle there was a chapel formerly belonging to the Swedenborgians (Fig. 11; survey number 48817), a mystical movement established in the 1740s by a self‐styled prophet from Sweden, Emanuel Swedenborg. Methodism From the late‐18th century, though, Nonconformism in East Lindsey was, as in the rest of the county, dominated by Methodism. Of the extant chapels in East Lindsey 92% are of Methodist origin and at its peak in the 1860s 8% of the county's population were members of one Methodist group or another. Indeed, until 1860 the number of Methodists in Lincolnshire grew at a greater rate than the county's population (Ambler, 2000, p.133).