Baptist Chapel, Wheathouse Road, Birkby

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Details

  • also known as: Birkby Baptist Church
  • location: Wheathouse Road, Birkby
  • status: still exists but now in different use
  • architect: Garside & Pennington of Pontefract
  • category: church or chapel

Built 1909/10 to replace an earlier chapel on Blacker Road North.

The foundation stones were laid on Saturday 5 June 1909. The contractors were:[1]

  • masons: Thomas Bottomley & Sons (Lindley)
  • joiners: J. & J. Wilkinson (Marsden)
  • plumbers: Milnes & Garside (Huddersfield)
  • plasterers: John Theobould & Sons
  • slater: Mr. T. B. Tunnacliffe
  • painters: Moxon & Sons (Huddersfield)

The Rev. H. Townsend of Hosforth Baptist Church "accepted an invitation to the pastorate of Birkby Baptist Church" in June 1910[2] and the opening services were held in late June and early July.[3]

The church closed in 2005 and the congregation amalgamated with New North Road Baptist Church.[4]

The building in now the Vajrapani Kadampa Buddhist Centre.

Extracts

The Baptists of Yorkshire (1912) by Rev. C.E. Shipley:

The Birkby Church, the youngest of our Huddersfield Churches, is the consummation of work undertaken more than fifty years ago by Salendine Nook. For some years a congregation was gathered at Hillhouse, in “an open timber-rafted building,” a phrase which we may regard as an euphuistic description of a barn. A small building of two stories was erected in 1859. The cause made slow progress, and, in 1879, then consisting of eighteen members, was taken under the care of one of the larger Huddersfield Churches, help being received from the Home Mission from 1881 to 1889, and lay preachers supplying the pulpit. The Birkby district increasing in population, a committee was appointed in 1902, in co-operation with the New North Road Church, to consider the needs of extension. A site was purchased in 1906, and, on July 10th, 1907, Birkby was formed into a separate Church. A building scheme was inaugurated, and on July 2nd, 1910, the present beautiful chapel was opened, and declared free from debt, although it had cost £5000. This splendid result was achieved, first by the devotion of the Birkby congregation, which raised nearly £1000; by a grant of £750 from the “Twentieth Century Fund”; by very generous local gifts, and by a successful bazaar held by the united Baptist Churches, which added the splendid contribution of £1186 to the fund. The Rev. H. Townsend, M.A., accepted a call to the pastorate, and commenced his ministry on July 17th, 1910.

Gallery

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Location

Notes and References

  1. "Birkby Baptists" in Huddersfield and Holmfirth Examiner (12/Jun/1909).
  2. "Ecclesiastical News" in Yorkshire Post (25/Jun/1910).
  3. "Birkby Baptists" in Huddersfield Daily Examiner (07/Jul/1910).
  4. West Yorkshire Archive Service: Off the Record.