Why Lanebottom Celebrated Twice

Click photo to enlarge Lanebottom Wesleyan Church and Sunday School pictured around 1920 when it was still a dominating presence in the area. Reproduced by kind permission of Mrs Dorothy Smith. Code no BT 931DS.

Once dominating the southerly outskirts of Walsden, the magnificent Lanebottom Wesleyan Chapel and Sunday School opened on September 27 1876.

The new building was by no means the first Wesleyan church in the area: a Sunday School had been established in cottages at Bottomley and Deanroyd in 1809 but this soon proved inadequate.

New premises were erected at Bottomley Lane Foot in 1818, on land given by John Fielden of Bottomley.

The inscription over the door stated that the school was open to children "of all denominations" which, as the authors of the Centenary history published in 1909 pointed out, unfortunately "led to considerable bickering."

Arguments between the trustees and school committee, resulting from the somewhat ambiguous wording, were still continuing over 40 years later culminating in 1861 when they could not agree the date of the annual Anniversary: as a consequence two were held - on August 2 and August 18.

The church remained a commanding feature of the Lanebottom landscape until it was demolished in the 1970s. The site is now occupied by houses.

Read the full story in Milltown Memories, issue 8. If this or other stories stirs a memory, we'd be happy to know - send us your memories and comments.