Had a wonderful two days at the Primitive Methodist Museum in Englesea Brook near Crewe, discovering the story of the Prims. An amazing story of how a movement started, and of what seems to happen to all new religious movements when they attain some kind of respectability and become part of the establishment. So many thanks to Jill (very clever and the source of an amazing amount of information) and Margaret (for just being really nice and welcoming and making me feel at home - and for the cake.)
An early Prim pulpit - maybe the first - a converted kitchen chest of drawers with a shelf added for a Bible and a preacher to peer over. They began in the open air and in homes / kitchens and parlours.
Then they moved on to the "mahogany" stage - building chapels, becoming more affluent, respectable, refined, educated, clever, sophisticated and eventually wound up reuniting with the Wesleyans from whom they had split some 120 years earlier. So they had become less Prim and more Proper.
Fascinating story behind this grave in the chapel. The theory is that there was a new vicar at the parish church who decided he wouldn't allow the Prims to be buried in his churchyard, so when one died they had to decide where to put him and could only think of under the chapel in the cellar. Then they bought some land and made a graveyard before the next one died. Only a theory but very attractive.
This wonderful quilt was made to present to the Countess of Carlisle to express appreciation for her patronage of the Temperance movement - a really big thing for Prims. Thought the ladies might appreciate this.
Came back with copious notes and a shelf full of food for thought
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