Harrow and Wealdstone

Although there is no record of John Wesley ever preaching at Harrow, there are references to Methodist meetings and a Sunday School in the village of Roxeth as early as abot 1810. But it was not until 1855 that the first chapel was built on the Lower Road. Replaced by the new Bessborough Road church in 1905, this then became a Welsh Congregational Church.

Wealdstone developed as a residential area to the north of Harrow during the course of the 19th century. The first Wesleyan meeting place was a carpenter's shop at the foot of Wealdstone Bridge, next a rented room in a cottage and a rented house with extra accommodation at the Bridge School. In 1885 land was bought at the junction of the present Rosslyn Crescent and Station Road as a site fo a tin Tabernacle.

At the beginning of the 20th century a proposal to unite the Harrow and Wealdstone societies in a single church in the Hindes Road area was shelved in favour of two new churches, one in Bessborough Road, Harrow and one in Locket Road, Wealdstone (replacing the tin chapel). The Bessborough Rosad church was sold in 1974. In 1939 the size of the Locket Road premises was doubled to give a second large hall, the 'Montrose Hall' plus two smaller meeting rooms. There were major post-war refurbishments to the premises in 1974, 1991 and 2006.

A Primitive Methodist chapel at Welldon Crescent (1904) joined the Harrow and Wealdstone Circuit after Methodist Union in 1932. In 1974 it became part of Trinity Methodist /URC Church in the URC premises at Hindes Road.

Sources
  • Wealdstone Methodist Church (1983)
  • Centenary: 100 Years of Wealdstone Methodist Church [2004]