Wesley preached in the Guildhall in 1769 and 1774, now 20, Fore Street, a baker's and restaurant, resplendent with a royal coat of arms on the exterior. The early Methodist preacher, Thomas Westell, spent some time in Bodmin gaol in 1744, having been committed there by the Penzance magistrates on a charge of vagrancy.
The first chapel was opened in 1803, but the imposing Fore Street Wesleyan Chapel of 1834 with its long stepped approach is now in the hands of a large pub/restaurant chain. The present society meets in a former shop a few doors lower down Fore Street.
The Bible Christians had a chapel from 1851at Bore Street/Dennison Road. In 1904 the Revd S. J. Finch, the Bible Christian minister at St Just, was imprisoned in Bodmin Gaol (rebuilt c.1855) for non-payment of educational rates in the Passive Resistance campaign against the Government's Education Act which allowed the possible payment of rate moneys to denominational schools. The minister at Bodmin wrote that his daughter was refused a teaching place at an Anglican school because her father was a Bible Christian minister. The Chapel closed in 1966 and became a Baptist Chapel.
The United Methodist Free Churches had a chapel at Pool Street which closed in 1965. The site in now a car park.
The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion's Providence chapel was built in 1804 at Crinnick's Hill. It closed early in the twenty-first century as a Congregational Church.
Charles Wesley's Journal:
July 1743: 'I set out alone, and, by wandering, made it threescore miles to Bodmin. Both horse and rider were worked down, so that I slept till five next morning, without once waking.'
John Wesley's Journal:
August 1769: 'I reached Bodmin about eight; where, at the request of one of our friends, I preached to a small, serious company, in the town hall.'
August 1774: 'A little company are at length united here. At their request I preached in the town-hall (the most dreary one I ever saw), to a mixed congregation of rich and poor. All behaved well; and who knows but some good may be done even at poor Bodmin?'
August 1778: 'About eleven I preached to a large and serious congregation near the town-hall in Bodmin.'
Entry written by: CCS
Category: Place
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