The Ebenezer Chapel and stone

This Methodist Chapel on Chapel Lane Ravenshead was built in 1864. After1945 the Chapel was used only for Sunday School and harvest Festivals and became disused as a chapel altogether in 1949. It did continue to be used for the distribution of ration books until the early 1950’s.

In 1872 one of the founders and Sunday School Superintendent Mr Richard William Clay was buried under the center aisle. This caused a real problem when the building was no longer required and put up for sale. Before it could be used for any other purpose the grave would need to be removed and exhumation is a very costly and time consuming business. So the doors and windows were all boarded up whilst the administrators started the process and eventually the body was re-interred into Blidworth Churchyard.

A stone, shown in the picture above on the gable end facing the road, was taken from the old Independent Methodist Chapel at Fishpool and is now set in the garden of a house on Chapel Lane, (see below) it reads “Ebenezer School & Chapel 1864” The Chapel was pulled down in 1957 and a house built on the site.

In its day the Ebenezer School & Chapel was very well attended and congregation and clergy would travel a good way to attend. Mrs. Rose who lived on Chapel lane in 1955 wrote in the Chad newspaper “I have 9 children and 3 generations of my family were regular visitors. You had to be there a quarter of an hour early or you wouldn’t get a seat. Farmers and their families from outlying farms attended in all weathers. The Band of Hope and Christian Endeavor meetings were held on weeknights and young people went regularly”