Gracious Street Methodist Church, Knaresborough
Our last Knaresborough church for Easter weekend completes the Holy Trinity in our eyes, and is of course the Gracious Street Methodist Church.
This one has the most interesting history out of the three in our opinion, and to be honest that may be simply because it had the most information to give in regards to its history, this includes the origin of their name!
Let us go back to the 27th of May 1742. A man named John Wesley was on his way to Newcastle and was riding through Knaresborough on the way. He happened to start talking to a man who was walking along the street that night and from this singular conversation a movement started. From that point onward a group began to meet and called themselves 'methodists' then continued to grow in number. By 1795 a meeting place had been erected at Bond End so that the group had a more permanent place to meet. As the Methodists grew further space grew short, so another building was required. When 1815 rolled around they'd moved to Gracious Street but it wasnt until 53 years later that they moved into the large Victorian chapel that stood where the current church remains and the rest is quite literally history!
The reason why the original galleried Victorian building is no longer there is because it became difficult to maintain. By the end of the 1960s repairs were growing steep and the building was unmanageable, so they decided to knock it down and start again.
1975 brought the church's 'final form' if you will. Obviously minor work such as knocking in a few walls and camera installation has happened since, but otherwise the church has remained pretty much as it was with some modern touches. The original building on Bond End continues to support the community and lives on in the hearts of the Methodists, but we think the most interesting part of this whole origin story is how Gracious Street got its name.
We know that this doesn't really have much to do with the church itself, but it is believed that Gracious Street is taken from the Anglo Saxon word that translates to 'ditch houses'. This travels way back to when these houses were built along the town ditch which was likely an open sewer. So attractive name for a very unattractive living space!
We happened to pass this church when we were walking back to the carpark from the other churches. It was the community serving side which caught our attention and you can see why! We knew it would be interesting and we weren't disappointed, but I'm sure you ghost lovers will be as we don't believe that this fairly recent building is haunted.
We did really enjoy researching this one though, as thanks to the story about Mr Wesley it really did feel like more of an origin story than the usual structured 'this is when it was commissioned, this is why, this is what it was made of' that we've had from a lot of churches recently. It restored our faith in what we are doing and renewed our love of research!
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