Bethesda chapel is one of the largest nonconformist chapels outside of London and was built in 1819.
The chapel ceased to be used in 1985and quickly fell into the hands of vandals and home to hundreds of pigeons. In 2002 it was acquired by the Historic Chapels Trust (HCT) and there has been a long campaign of fund raising in an attempt to restore what is a wonderful building.
Most of the organ pipes were illegally removed and sold for scrap and a replacement organ was sourced from another church in Manchester.
It can seat 2000 people and has a vast single span ceiling which was fully restored in 2007, following the acquisition of the chapel by HCT.
Sadly now, HCT has run out of funds and is due to close in the near future, putting the building at further risk and it is currently on the market.
We have performed there a few times and are delighted to help a handful of dedicated people raise funds for this building which was once a jewel in the potteries. We were invited to return to Bethesda following our annual Alton Christmas concert last year.
Since our last visit, the chapel can now boast its own toilets where previously such facilities were only available at Hanley museum – a short dash away!
So on a warm and sunny afternoon, we arrived at the chapel and set our stall out. Ever optimistic, Peter left his coat in the car, not having performed there before and despite being warned in advance how cold it can be inside the building. Within five minutes, he was back to the car for that extra layer.
We were treated to an organ recital on our arrival and then we began to play at 12.30pm and played a wide variety of music for 50 minutes to a very appreciative audience.
Wendy had previously been very busy transcribing several new pieces for us to play, including a few hymns and a version of ‘Sheep may safely graze’ by J S Bach. This was played with great feeling and is a very expressive piece of music. I hope this becomes a favourite in future.
Overall, I think we played very well, with just a slight hiccup in ‘When the Saints go marching in’, when about half way through, some of the saints took a tumble and after a while, so many were down that we had to stop playing and restart the piece!
Unfortunately and somewhat typical these days, audience numbers were very low. At one point, several people got up from the ground floor seating and left. However, it turned out that they had simply gone upstairs to sample the acoustics there. Acoustically, Bethesda chapel is truly amazing. It would be great to do a full team concert there, but the chapel restoration committee worry that they might not be able to draw in enough people to justify this.
Bethesda chapel, struggling for sufficient funding to complete its restoration, is a shadow of its former self and is rather symptomatic to the decline of the potteries and particularly Hanley, in recent years.
Dave