History

The present Baptist Chapel in Charlesworth was built in 1835.  But the real beginning of the story goes back centuries earlier. In the year 1294 AD, Peter de Charlesworth gave to the Abbot of Basingwerk eighty acres of land in Charlesworth.  There the monks of Basingwerk established a farm and built a chapel (or chantry) dedicated to St Mary Magdalen.  After 1532, when Henry VIII broke with Rome, and declared himself head of the Church in England, many monasteries were dissolved and their chantries closed.  But the Charlesworth chapel survived, though now in the hands of the newly established Church of England.  However, in 1559, during the reign of Elizabeth I, its lands were confiscated, and for the next hundred years the chapel building fell into disuse.

During the seventeenth century, when the Church of England was under the control of a Puritan-dominated parliament, the chapel began to be used again. In a chapel built by Roman Catholic monks, Puritan ministers were now allowed to preach the gospel.  During the years of the Protectorate while Cromwell ruled England, the chapel became virtually a Puritan (presbyterian) church, though still officially within the church of England.  And when the monarchy was restored in 1660, the chapel stayed in the hands of the Puritans.  In 1662, eighteen hundred Puritan ministers were expelled from the Church of England and their churches were forced to conform to the Church of England prayer-book.  Yet the Charlesworth chapel remained presbyterian in its practice and was eventually recognised as a nonconformist chapel – which it still is today.  One church historian comments, “There is apparently no other instance in England of a Parochial Chapel or Church remaining in Nonconformist hands for nearly 300 years”.

Gospel-preaching nonconformists were savagely persecuted between 1662 and 1688.  Yet the light of the gospel continued to shine in Charlesworth. One of the men expelled from the Church of England in 1662 was William Bagshawe who had been vicar of Glossop.  He moved back to his own estate in Chapel-en-le-Frith and continued to preach the gospel all through the persecution years.  “In season and out of season, in spite of legal obstacles and the peril of informers, he did the work of an Evangelist throughout the High Peak, teaching and preaching both in his own home and from house to house… he became known to his contemporaries as ‘the Apostle of the Peak’.” We are told that he preached the Word of God “in corners” and that the people flocked to hear him “like doves to a window”.   Charlesworth was one of the many places where he preached regularly.  The Charlesworth folk thought of him as their pastor.  “Many a danger he braved, many a storm he faced, many a wearisome journey he undertook to minister to his flock on this hill side”. Two hundred years later he was still spoken of with awe by the local people.  A local historian could write, “Traditions still linger in the neighbourhood of those stormy times: of how during the dark days of the Five Mile and Conventicle Acts, men were placed at the foot of the hill and other positions of vantage, as watchers, to give the alarm at the first approach of enemies to the worshippers on the heights above..”

After 1688 when freedom was restored, Bagshawe continued to pastor the church at Charlesworth along with other churches throughout the Peak District. (You can read the thrilling story of Bagshawe’s ministry in John Brentnall’s book “Apostle of the Peak”, Banner of Truth, 1970).  Towards the end of his ministry he was assisted by his nephew John Ashe, a man of equal zeal and courage.  Ashe “seemed to be cut out for the services to which Providence had called him and the country in which he had been placed.  Many a rough blast did he sustain in his passage over the high and bleak mountains of the Peak to the distant places where he preached.  Many a struggle did he endure in getting through the deep and falling snows of winter, yet he went cheerfully on, like the Apostle, not counting his life dear to him, so that he might finish his course with joy in saving his own and other men’s souls.  It was his custom to carry a book in his pocket wherever he went, and employ himself in reading as he traveled, whether on horse-back or on foot; in which he was frequently so intent as to lose his way before he was aware”.

During Ashe’s ministry, probably in 1703, the ancient chapel was demolished and the material used to build a new chapel, suitable for reformed worship. It was a very basic building: “a small, square, stone building, with rough benches and a few straight-backed pews, the floor of mother earth, covered with straw or rushes to protect the feet..” Bagshawe and Ashe were followed by a series of faithful gospel ministers who remained true to the reformed faith.  Yet dangerous influences were at work.  One pastor, Samuel Mercer, appointed in 1756 was found to have Unitarian tendencies.  He was dismissed forthwith.  The members of the church were staunch Calvinists and would not tolerate any deviation.