Erection date: 1870
This stone was laid by Mrs J. Toulson for G. W. Palmer, Esq.
Site: Caledonian Road Methodist Church (6 memorials)
N7, Caledonian Road, 426
These 6 plaques are on the east elevation of the building, below the ground floor windows. We have numbered the plaques left to right.
From the Listing entry: Formerly known as: Primitive Methodist Chapel CALEDONIAN ROAD. Non-conformist Methodist chapel. 1870; restored 1953; internal alterations c.1972.
From My Primitive Methodists: "Prior to the building of the Caledonian Road chapel, the Primitive Methodists rented Market Street hall in Market Street, Caledonian Road from 1860, St. George’s hall, Richmond Road {now Avenue}, 1863, then a hall in Hemingford Street {now Road, we think}. In 1903 the attendance was 95 in the morning and 251 in the evening. The chapel became Caledonian Road Methodist church in 1932 and was restored and reopened in 1953. It seated 375 in 1955 and 250 in 1972. Funds were raised in 1980 to clean the exterior, revealing the fine Italianate building of buff and red brick."
We had not previously heard of the Primitive Methodists, so looked it up and Wikipedia gives: "The Primitive Methodist Church is a body of Holiness Christians within the Methodist tradition, which began in England in the early 19th century, with the influence of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834). In the United States, the Primitive Methodist Church had eighty-three parishes and 8,487 members in 1996. In Great Britain and Australia, the Primitive Methodist Church merged with other denominations, to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain in 1932 and the Methodist Church of Australasia in 1901. The latter subsequently merged into the Uniting Church in Australia in 1977." Which doesn't really answer our question: In what sense were they Primitive?
