Wind Mill Methodist Chapel, near West Auckland, closes

A tiny country chapel which has witnessed for 154 years – led latterly by the founder’s great great great granddaughters – has held its final service.

The church in the hamlet of Wind Mill, on a quiet country lane off the A68 above West Auckland, was said by the Rev Richard Bainbridge to be a “classic rural wayside chapel”.

Like the famous London theatre of the same name, it was believed, Wind Mill would never close.

Wind Mill Methodist Chapel, near West Auckland, which has held its last service after 154 years (Image: MIKE AMOS)

The Northern Echo’s At Your Service column once described it as “traditional, nostalgic, as comfortable as a winter coat” and suggested that it was one of the old fashioned chapels where mint imperials were passed surreptitiously before the sermon began.

It’s closing because Methodism’s leaders have decreed that churches must have a minimum of 12 members. Wind Mill had 11.

“We had 12 but one died and unfortunately we couldn’t replace her. It’s very disappointing and very, very sad” said chapel steward Joyce Simpson.

Some of the congregation at the chapel's final service (Image: MIKE AMOS)

Methodist churches at South Church and at Auckland Park – less than a mile apart near Bishop Auckland – have also recently closed because of the same ruling.

Joyce admitted, however, that the building was in need of modernisation, adding: “It’s getting older, we all are. It’s not the people who come here who’ve led to the closure, it’s those who don’t.”

Primitive Methodists in the hamlet, known formerly as Pit Green and before that as Railley Fell, met originally in a room above the mill from which it took its name.

The 1851 census described it as “a place of public religious worship”; the chapel’s centenary brochure thought it “a place of religious power”.

William Hodgson, a direct descendant of Joyce Simpson and of her sister Hazel Gaskell and their cousin Sheila Plant – gave the land for the chapel in 1869, helped other villagers quarry stone and to build it.

In 1938 the Sunday School had 12 girls and 14 boys on its register, a platform erected for the annual anniversary so that the children might say their pieces. “You felt you were talking to the whole world, not just half of Wind Mill” someone once recalled.

Before closure, however, none of the regular congregation was under 60. Usually there’s be ten or so, many more for annual performances by the likes of the Beltones, the Station Town Centenary Singers and Brancepeth and Aycliffe Brass Band and for Harvest Festival.

“Harvest Festivals were legendary, table piled high with produce” said Mr Bainbridge, himself credited with “taking the chapel from the 19th century to the 21st”. He oversaw the installation of a flushing toilet.

Since there’ll be no more harvest festivals at Wind Mill, they sang We plough the fields and scatter anyway.

Others like retired head teacher George Dixon, 89, remembered chapel teas at a nearby farmhouse known as Auntie Winnie’s. “No matter how long your arms were, you couldn’t reach the centre of the table. That’s how much food there was.”

Among other speakers was local preacher Gerald Bell, from Stanhope, who at the chapel’s 150th anniversary had recalled that 1869 was also the year of the first Sainsbury’s store, the first edition of People’s Friend and the first council houses.

Church leaders say they must have a minimum of 12 members - Wind Mill had 11 (Image: MIKE AMOS)

On Sunday, he noted that he was usually invited to Wind Mill for the chapel anniversary, in November.

“It’s so nice to be here when it’s now snowing,” he added.

The Rev David Payne told a thronged church that they were sorry to be closing but were closing in a positive way. “We are the travelling people of God and we shall continue to travel with God.”

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Outside, he said, there was a traffic jam. “You don’t often get those in Wind Mill.”

Afterwards they gathered once more to feed the five thousand, or so it might seem, recalling long-gone anniversaries at which they’d be allowed to play postman’s knock or a game called winky, which sounded very similar.

It’s expected that the chapel will be converted into a private house but for now – what goes around comes around – Wind Mill is blown out.

Read more of Mike's writings on his blog at mikeamosblog.wordpress.com/