On Thursday 29 March 1739 John Wesley stopped at Egham to have dinner. His next visit was on Sunday 30 January 1743, when he walked from Windsor to Egham. Wesley recorded that the incumbent 'preached one of the most miserable sermons I ever heard.' Later the same day Wesley preached from the same text (Matt. 7: 16), 'in an endeavour to rescue the poor text.' There is no record of Wesley preaching at Egham again.

Wesleyan Methodists

There was a Wesleyan chapel in Egham by the 1840s, supported by the Pocock family. Thomas Wilmer Pocock (1817-1889) paid for the building of a new chapel in memory of his son Seth Smith Pocock (1851-78), killed in a boating accident. The Pocock Memorial Chapel was built in 1879-80 and was renovated and enlarged in 1892. At the reopening on 17 November 1892 Seth's brother Percy Wilmer Pocock (1856-1942) took the chair and the preacher was the Rev. Dr James H. Rigg, President of the Conference. In 1970 the chapel joined with Egham Hill Congregational Church to form the United Church of Egham.

A second Wesleyan society formed in Englefield around 1860, meeting in a house. T.W. Pocock donated a school chapel, built in Alexander Road in 1882, and a new chapel was built on adjacent land in Victoria Street in 1904. This 250-seat building was opened on 3 May 1904 by Miss Elizabeth R. Pocock (1845-1913), of Wakehurst. The chapel closed in 2002 and the Methodist congregation formed a United Church with the parish church of St Jude's.

Primitive Methodists

A small corrugated iron chapel opened in Wendover Road, Egham Hythe, in 1898. This was replaced by a second iron building and then, in 1952, by a brick chapel, which closed in 2015.

Entry written by: DHR
Category: Place
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