North Petherton: Nonconformity

NONCONFORMITY.

Members of the Maunsel family, their servants, and others were presented for recusancy from the 1590s to the 1620s. (fn. 1) A local recusant was convicted at the assizes in 1674. (fn. 2) There was a meeting, probably of Baptists, at Rydon in the 1650s. (fn. 3) There were two Quaker meeting places in the parish in 1669 and Friends were active in the 1670s. In 1672 licences for Presbyterian and Congregational worship were granted, and in all the parish had six nonconformist teachers with 90 hearers in 1669. (fn. 4) Licences for unspecified denominations were issued in 1696 and 1706 but by 1776 there were said to be only three dissenters in the parish. (fn. 5) Further licences were issued in 1807, 1822, 1823, 1824, and 1845, and for houses in North Newton in 1809 and 1851. (fn. 6)

An Independent minister was living in the parish in 1795, and in the early 19th century services and a Sunday school were held in a cottage. A Congregational meeting house was licensed in 1824 and a chapel was built in 1833 on the Bridgwater road with seats for 600 people. (fn. 7) It was given an Italianate facade by Edwin Down in 1869 (fn. 8) and remained open as a United Reformed church in 1984. The schoolroom was rebuilt in 1922. (fn. 9)

In 1851 an Independent meeting house was licensed at North Newton, (fn. 10) and in 1865 a chapel, known as the Free Chapel, was built. In 1896 there was a Sunday school, services were 'well attended', and the chapel was the centre of an evangelist's district. (fn. 11) The chapel, south-west of North Newton church, had closed by 1972 (fn. 12) and was later taken over for industrial use.

In 1863 Congregationalists began cottage services at Fordgate, and later in the same year a chapel was built there. In 1864 a Sunday school was started. (fn. 13) The chapel had closed by 1944 and in 1954 it was sold. (fn. 14) It has since been demolished. In the 1860s Bridgwater Congregationalists held cottage services at Somerset Bridge. In 1865 a chapel and schoolroom were built and in 1889 an evangelist was appointed to work at Huntworth, Northmoor Green, and Northmoor Corner. In 1896 a mission station was recorded at Northmoor Corner and the Somerset Bridge church had 51 members. (fn. 15) The chapel stood immediately southwest of the railway bridge. Recorded in 1914 (fn. 16) but closed later, the chapel had become an ice-cream factory by 1966 (fn. 17) and was so used until burnt down in 1984. The Union chapel at Hedging, built in 1863, was in the care of the Taunton village evangelist by 1896 and was shared with the Baptists. (fn. 18) A schoolroom was added in 1918. (fn. 19) The chapel probably closed c. 1964, (fn. 20) and was used as a storeroom by 1982.

A meeting house for Methodists was licensed in 1805. (fn. 21) In 1832 the Tappers Lane Wesleyan chapel was opened with 90 seats and in 1840 there were two Sunday services and one on a weekday. The schoolroom was said to have been built also in 1832 for 70 children. (fn. 22) There were three services each week in 1920 but by 1960 one evening service was held with an average attendance of six and in 1961 the chapel was closed. (fn. 23) In 1982 it was a private house. There may have been Methodist services at North Newton in 1889 and 1894. (fn. 24)

In 1839 Baptists from Burrowbridge formed a church at Northmoor Green. (fn. 25) A chapel was built in 1844 and restored in 1897. (fn. 26) It closed between 1939 and 1965 (fn. 27) and in 1982 it was a private house. A Bible Christian chapel at Northmoor Green had two Sunday services in 1867. In 1868 the chapel was said to have been loaned to them and may have been the Baptist chapel. (fn. 28)