Harlesden, High Street

The building illustrated was designed by Charles Bell (1846-1899), a London architect responsible for the design of sixty Wesleyan chapels, and was also known as Willesden Wesleyan chapel. It was the third chapel in Harlesden replacing a chapel in use from 1847 to 1856 and Willesden Junction Wesleyan chapel. It was built to seat 1030, but attendance figures from 1903 give a morning congregation of 240, with 435 attending in the evening.

At the time of the 1940 Statistical Returns, it could seat 960. The chapel was damaged in 1940, and demolished the following year. A new chapel was built in 1956.

Reference: The twenty-eighth annual report of the Wesleyan Chapel Committee, 1882 page 136

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

Diane K Bolton, Patricia E C Croot and M A Hicks, ‘Willesden: Protestant nonconformity’, in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 7, Acton, Chiswick, Ealing and Brentford, West Twyford, Willesden, ed. T F T Baker and C R Elrington (London, 1982), pp. 242-246. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol7/pp242-246 [accessed 19 November 2019].