History Trinity Church Abingdon

Trinity Church, Abingdon

History of the Church

A BRIEF HISTORY of the current building

1875- Trinity Wesleyan Methodist Church opened in Conduit Road

1932- Trinity Methodist Church was created through the Union of United, Primitive and Wesleyan Methodist

1945- The Ock Street Church closed and the Primitive Methodist Church moved to Trinity

1959- 47 members living in North Abingdon transferred, to form the new All Saints Methodist Church in Appleford Drive.

1968- The Congregational Church closed it building in the town centre and moved in for joint services with Trinity on an informal basis.

1972- The Congregational Church untited with the Presbyterians to form the United Reformed Church

1978- The signing of sharing agreements between Trinity Methodist Church and Abingdon Untied Reformed Church, to form our current congregation

	The Record of Ministry Board in the North Porch at Trinity shows a record of ministry going back to 1700 through Congregational and Methodist chapels and churches. The very first minister recorded on here was Rev. Samuel Blower, back in 1701 at the Congregational Meeting House, opened in The Square in 1700. Before that there is a record of a house in Ock Street being leased to Presbyterians, or dissenters. This became possible after the 'Act of Toleration' in 1689 which allowed Non Conformist dissenters to meet legally. An early report of the Meeting House describes a Sunday Service 'The clerk sat at his desk beneath the pulpit, his duty to announce the hymns, tunes, and notices. On one side of the crowded gallery sat the men, on the other the women, the pews on the ground floor being occupied by families. In various parts of the building men from the villages stood, clad in long smocked coats, tired after their long weeks work in the fields - standing lest drowsiness rob them of even a crumb of the truth by which they lived.' The Congregational Church was built in the Square in 1862 and continued as a place of worship until 1969, when the members started to share the Trinity Church building.
	One of the most important days in Methodist history in Abingdon occurred on 18th July 1739, when a young George Whitefield visited the town and preached to several thousand. There had been opposition to his visit, with a landlord turning him away, but he stayed the night in the town and was persuaded to preach again the next morning. He must have had some effect, as John Wesley’s 1741 diary records “At the repeated insistence of some of the people there, I went over to Abingdon”. It is thought that he preached in the yard of the former Lion Inn in High Street, but Abingdonians did not impress him. “So stupid, senseless a people, both in a spiritual and natural sense I scarce ever saw before. Yet God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”
	The first signs of an active (Methodist) society were noted in 1815, when a collection was taken for Oxford circuit expenses. There was no licensed meeting place until several months later, when The Bishop of Salisbury issued the first licence to Joseph Ostler, for the use of his house off West St Helen’s Street. Rowdies used to interrupt services, until the society became strong enough to build a small chapel in Stert Street in 1823. In 1837 it became part of a new circuit based on Wantage which included Drayton, Southmoor and Tubney and for the first time in five years, Abingdon had its own minister. There were also Primitive Methodists (or Prims) meeting in Abingdon from 1835 in Spring Road and then Ock Street. One of their travelling preachers was jailed for 3 months with hard labour for selling hymn books and magazines without a licence!
	Abingdon was growing fast and in 1846, the council gave permission for two tenements in Ock Street to be pulled down to make space for a Wesleyan Chapel. Attendance continued to increase and by the late 1860’s it was becoming obvious that new premises were needed. An appeal booklet issued in 1873 claimed that “for several years past the Methodist Church in Abingdon has laboured under very unfavourable circumstances”. The chapel and schoolroom were built on a limited site at a time when both were regularly full to the point of overflow. The minister at the time, the first Wesleyan preacher in Abingdon to hold a degree, Rev Samuel Atkinson, took on a lot of the planning and fund raising, strongly supported by John Creemer- Clarke, a leading lay member and clothing manufacturer. Described as being “a high toned gentleman, handsome in person “, John came to Abingdon from North Devon in about 1840. Soon after moving to Abingdon he became the Mayor of Abingdon and then in later years he became a M.P.. Even then, he still devoted much of his time to the church. J.C.Clarke did not give merely his influence and time to the building of the church ,but also land on Conduit Road and £1000 to help build the Church. (This was 20% of the total money needed. ) Opened in 1875, the new church was impressive building, with a 128 foot high spire, built in the gothic style, at an estimated cost of £5000. Because of the efforts J.C.Clarke made they nicknamed the Church “Clarke’s Chapel.”
	During the two World Wars, Trinity’s schoolroom was put to use as a billet for servicemen and to house evacuees. By 1947, the Sunday--School had 140 members. As Abingdon grew northwards a new Church, 'All Saints', was built in Appleford Drive in 1959. Half of the congregation stayed at Trinity and half moved to All Saints. 1975 saw further changes, with complete changes to the interior of the church. The Pews were removed and the organ moved to its present position, to create a choir vestry. When the Congregational Church in the Square was vacated by the Congregationalists joining Trinity, the intention was that the funds would go towards a new Church in South Abingdon. However, after planning difficulties, the sum realised from the sale was not what had been expected, and this plan did not proceed. The money was put to good use in 1984 with the development of the Conduit Centre for the benefit of the local community. Information taken from “A History of Trinity (Wesleyan) Methodist Church, Abingdon” by D.B. Tranter Web-page made by Work Experience Student J.P.Woodham