Timberscombe Methodist Church
"Providence" Chapel
Church Street, Timberscombe, Somerset TA24 7TP
Sunday Worship: 3pm (6pm in Summer)
Women's Fellowship: 3pm Tuesdays
Please contact the minister, Rev Gareth J Edwards, on 01643 703791.
The church building, a Bible Christian chapel, was built by brothers Edward and James Cording who farmed Croydon Farm. It was opened on 27th March, 1836, costing £150, and was handed over free of debt to local trustees in 1839.
James died at the end of 1836 but Edward lived until 1886; he was a local preacher for 52 years. He gave up farming in 1876 and went to live in a house he had built himself, just opposite the chapel. Next door was the manse which he also built.
In 1907, the Bible Christians became part of the United Methodist Church and in 1932 this united church joined with the Primitives and the Wesleyans to make the present Methodist Church. In 1969, the original Bible Christian Circuit (Kingsbrompton), of which Timberscombe was a part, was amalgamated with two others to form the West Somerset Circuit which is currently served by two ordained ministers—Revd Linda Barriball (Superintendent) and Revd Gareth Edwards who has pastoral care of Timberscombe. Services are held every Sunday: 6pm from April to October and 3pm from November to March.
Some interesting features that you may find in a visit to our chapel are the pull-out seats at the aisle end of the pews; the central hook and candle; lamp brackets on the walls; and a small gallery, now screened off.
On the east wall is sited a memorial tablet to Revd J P Martin, author of the ‘Uncle’ children’s books, and his painting of ‘Harvest Festival’.
The Lectern, made by local Timberscombe craftsman Mr W Scholfield, is dedicated in memory of Mrs Jane Martin, founder of the Womens Fellowship (October 1952), which still continues to this day.
The cross on the south wall was made by former minister Revd Neville Pugh and the wooden figure-head of Christ was made and sent by an American friend.
We hear much today about the poverty and squalor of our inner cities and the despair, sometimes leading to violence, of those who live there, but in the early years of the 19th century it was often in the countryside that the worst conditions were to be found, and in parts of West Somerset they plumbed depths of destitution and depravity hard for us to imagine. Sydney Smith wrote from Bishops Lydeard in 1821 - "The wretchedness of the poor in this part of the country is very afflicting. Men work for one shilling a day all the year round, and they receive no parish relief unless they have more than three children…. I would not be in the least surprised if a plague broke out". John Henley, the Wesleyan minister at Dunster, who in 1825 and 1826 used to come over to Timberscombe to preach from an upping stock near the village shop, recorded in his diary more than once how he was surrounded by drunken brawls and set upon with sticks and cudgels. These wretched people received but little support, material or spiritual, from the Parish Church; often the parson lived many miles away in solid comfort and paid a young curate to perform the minimum requirements of his office.
This was the situation into which the Bryanite (Bible Christian) preachers came in the early 1820's led by the Maiden Preacher, the frail but indomitable Mary Mason, pushing north from Dulverton and Bury and setting up cottage fellowships for prayer and preaching. One such village meeting was started in the shopkeeper's cottage at Timberscombe, and quickly became one of the most important in the area, but we have very little record of those early years until the arrival in 1833 of Edward Cording and his elder brother James. Their father John had been a prosperous farmer and maltster at Bathealton, where he was converted in 1815, but he became dissatisfied by the apparent lack of any spiritual progress and in 1817 moved to Upton. It was there that he greeted the first of the new Bryanite preachers, and few meetings can have been more fruitfu1. His two sons caught their father's rekindled enthusiasm and were converted, and after his death they obtained the lease of the large farm and manor of Croydon Hall, now known as Croydon House, near Timberscombe, where for the next 60 years passing preachers and Circuit Deputations were assured of a true Christian welcome and hospitality.
In 1835 the elder son James was gravely ill, but Edward went ahead with their resolve to build a chapel at Timberscombe and the present building, perched on the hillside near the Parish Church, was opened on March 27th, 1836. It cost £150, and was handed over free of debt to local Trustees in 1839. James died at the end of 1836 but Edward lived on, always a power in the countryside, until 1886; he was a Local Preacher for 52 years and Circuit steward from 1840 to 1869. He gave up farming in 1876 and went to live at Timberscombe in a house he had built himself, just opposite the Chapel. Next door was the Bible Christian Manse, which he had also built.
After the opening of the Chapel, the membership remained for many years around 20-25, but as elsewhere the congregations were much larger: in the religious Census of 1851 they were stated to be 30 in the morning and 60 in the evening. Timberscombe shared in a Revival which started in Luxborough in 1858 and spread through much of the Circuit, but 10 years later, for reasons now lost, numbers fell right away and for a short time the Chapel was actually closed, in spite of the fact that the Circuit Pastors lived in the village almost continuously between 1859 and 1892. However, the Chapel re-opened, members returned, and in 1884 there was another great Revival when more than 50 men and women came forward to accept Christ as their Saviour. But then economic depression and depopulation began to take their toll: the mines closed, the slate quarries closed, and report after report from the Circuit Pastors speak of the young people, and often whole families, moving out to seek a better life elsewhere.
In 1907 the Bible Christian Church became part of the United Methodist Church, and in 1932 this United Church joined with the Primitives and the Wesleyans to make the present Methodist Church. In 1969 the original Bible Christian Circuit (Kingsbrompton) was amalgamated with two others to form the present West Somerset Methodist Circuit. These changes have had little practical impact, on the whole, on the small village Chapels like Timberscombe; what has had much more effect, and a wholly beneficial one, is the breakdown of the old enmity between Church and Chapel. The happy co-operation between Anglican and Methodist congregations, so evident here, would have been unthinkable 100 years ago.
www.dunster.org.uk - Dunster & Timberscombe Community Website
