DMBI: A Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland

Woodbridge, Suffolk

The first Methodist preaching was by a drummer who was also a local preacher, while he was stationed in the town in 1812. The work was continued by preachers from the WM Ipswich Circuit. It began again in 1818 in hired rooms, until a chapel was opened in Brook Street in 1829. According to the 1851 Religious Census, this seated 250, including 82 free seats. Despite its inconvenient approach, it was not superseded by the St. John Street chapel, in yellow brick with a gabled front and rusticated plinth, until 1872. In 1990 the interior was reordered and an octagonal meeting room was added at the side.

Sources

T.N. Ritson (ed.), The Story of a Century: the history of Wesleyan Methodism in the Ipswich Circuit (c.1908), pp.121-26
Elizabeth Wathews and Janet Lumley, The Story of Ninety Years: Methodism in the Ipswich Circuit 1909-98 (Ipswich, 2001)

Woodbridge, Suffolk

See also