Tipton, Park Lane

Park Lane Wesleyan Church was designed by George Bidlake, of Wolverhampton, and built by Trow and Sons, of Wednesbury. The foundation stone was laid on 7th of August, 1865, and the chapel opened on Sunday 23rd September, 1866. The building, which cost £5,874.3s.0d. was built of red bricks with stone dressings in the Gothic style. Features included an impressive ornate frontage and a beautiful tower with a stone spire, 120 feet high. It was built to seat 1000, and could still seat 948 in 1940.

The first preaching house in Tipton had been built in 1750, and this was replaced in 1786 by a chapel in Park Lane. John Wesley himself was responsible for the move. The chapel was replaced in 1809 and that building was enlarged in 1827, as the cause prospered. The building illustrated was the third on the site.

George Bidlake (1830-1892) was an architect whose designs were mainly in the Wolverhampton area. His “Sketches of Churches Designed for the Use of Nonconformists” was published in 1865.

By 1975 the building was in a bad state of repair, so it was demolished and replaced with a smaller modern chapel that opened on 1st July, 1978.

Grid Ref: SO953921

Reference: The eleventh annual report of the Wesleyan Chapel Committee, 1865 page 119

Returns of accommodation … 1873. London: Wesleyan Conference Office, 1875

Statistical returns … as at July 1^st 1940. Manchester: Methodist Church, Department of Chapel Affairs, 1947

‘Wesleyan Church. Park Lane’ , in The Annals of Tipton: Churches and Religion  http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/articles/Tipton/churches.htm [accessed 29 November 2019].