Home Page
History
The story of Mount Tabor
The site of Mount Tabor was purchased from Staveley Coal and Iron Co. for the sum of £24. 10s on the 27th June 1891. It contains 490 square yards. Some of the Trustees have descendants still living in Brimington. They were men of faith for the only housing at that time was on Victoria Street, built by the Company for it's workers, with the other streets sparsely populated with private houses. The
names on the land Purchase Deed were: - John Brown, William Mason and George Sharman,
labourers, John Bartholemew, foreman George Hunt, miner, George Hayes, horse driver
and Luke Woodward, boiler-maker, all of New Brimington. From Whittington there was
Samuel Taylor, auctioneer, James Potts, furniture dealer, William Dann, grocer and
baker and James Turner, Miner.
Mount Tabor had a particularly low ebb at this time, with congregations of six
and collections of 2/6d (121p). The Circuit was controlled by a few monied
tradesmen from the mother "Holywel1 Cross" Church (The Circuit was the Holywell
Cross and Staveley Circuit). Serious attempts to close Mount Tabor, Brimington
Common and Stonegravels had to be warded off by our leaders. Happily they succeeded,
and the church grew steadily stronger.
The stonelaying of Mount Tabor was on 7th July 1881, and on the front of the Church
are the names of four who laid stones. JOHN BROWN was the Mayor of Chesterfield.
MRS. J. ASHMORE, no doubt the wife of Mr. Ashmore who owned a foundry in Church Street.
We have no information about MISS S. POTTS. MR. W. DANN was a baker and grocer at
Whittington Moor and a leader of the Primitive Methodist Church there.
The Church portion only existed then, 24ft wide by 30 ft long. Imagine a wall where
the present wooden partition is, a pulpit in the centre and a large tortoise stove on
the right-hand-side. There was a reed organ. We don't know how much the building cost,
but we do know it only took 13 weeks to build. The opening services were at 10.30am
and 6pm on 9th October 1881 when the Rev. Samuel Barker, who was Minister at
Whittington Moor for many years, was the preacher. In the afternoon at 2.30pm
Mr. Thomas Holloway preached. Collections amounted to £13. On the Monday there
was a Public Tea and Meeting. Speakers were Mr. Ben Winn and Mr. Taylor.
Proceeds were £27. The amounts given seem particularly high, seeing that
the wage of a labourer at this time was about 18s a week and a tradesman
28s. Sunday School must have started immediately, for in 1882 Mount Tabor
joined the Brimington Sunday School Union.
The Schoolroom was added in 1904, and unfortunately we have no minute books of this
period. The unusual 'Climb Higher Remembering God' painted on the facing wall was
the brain-child of Mrs. Tissington. The vestry and the kitchen were added at the
same time. When Mr. Large came to New Brimington in 1912 the door to the cellar
which was underneath the kitchen was at the rear of the existing buildings.
There were six steps down to the cellar which had an underground spring in
one corner. In wet weather the floods would reach the bars of the coke boiler.
After a few years of clearing the water a bucket at a time, Mr. Clarence Stevenson
and Mr. Large put in a pipe to drain the water into the dyke in the back lane.
Beyond the cellar, where the main body of the hall is now, was a garden, and
right on the back lane boundary were earth toilets and a coke store.
A Nissen Hut was erected in 1949 to house the constantly expanding youth work.
It cost £1000 and how the members gave and worked to meet the cost in those austere
post-war years. Mrs. E. Sadler, sister of Mrs. F. Smith opened the building and
Rev. Bill Wallace, District Chairman and later to be killed in a rail accident,
was the preacher. The hut incorporated toilets and storage space and had an unusual
composition floor, a kind of dirty red colour, which became very sticky at Christmas
Parties and similar times, often imparting it's redness onto the clothes of any
child unlucky enough to slip. The Primary Department met in the hut and the
teachers painted the little wooden chairs in bright colours to cheer the place up.
The "Happyhut" as it had become known had an intended 10 year 1ife. It served
it's purpose well and many happy memories will flood into the minds of those
who knew it. When demolished in 1968 it had almost doubled it's life expectancy.
The Church Interior was changed dramatically in 1960 when the dark pitch pine folding
doors, wainscotting and pews were stippled in light oak, the organ moved from right
to left hand side and a new pulpit, organ screen, cross and communion rail were
carved by Mr. Dorrington of Alfreton. The cost was £500 and Rev. R.L. Upton preached
at the rededication service.
In 1963 it was decided to replace the "Happyhut" kitchen and vestry with
a new hall 55 feet long and including toilets, kitchen and storage. Fund raising
started immediately. The backbone of the income came from weekly direct giving and
the strangest possible miscellany of assorted efforts supplemented the income.
From the sale of garden gnomes and Christmas crackers, to lettered rock and sheet
music. Unusual sounding efforts like Apple Pie Night all helped. The total cost
including furniture was £7500. Work started on Thursday 22nd August 1968 and the
joyful Dedication Service was conducted by Rev. John Perkins on 29th March 1959.
The preacher was Rev. George Percival and the opener Mr. Paul G. Bartlett Lang,
the secretary of the Rank Benevolent Trust, who had taken a personal interest in
the scheme, and with whose support we had received a generous £2000 grant.
Between 1920 and 1925 the pipe organ was installed to replace the reed
organ. It had been built by Alfred Kirkland of London in 1892 and bought for Maurice
Unwin (former head of Brimington Boys School) by his father and installed at their Troughbrook home. The console was downstairs - there was a
hole in the ceiling for the pipes! Our then organist Mr. George "Clocky" Brown
convinced Mr. Fred Smith it would be a good instrument to have at Mount Tabor.
So the final home of this fine two-manual, five stops and full pedal-board organ
was Mount Tabor. It was hand-pumped until it's last woodworm riddled days
in 1970. When the organ was scrapped we had little chance of a replacement. The Organ Fund
contained £230 and it was expected to cost £500 for a new one. Exactly one week
after the Trust meeting which decided to scrap the old organ John Madin sent a
message "I have a second-hand organ, please call and see it". The trustees liked
what they saw, a handsome two-manual electronic organ - a Swiss Solina - at a
very modest £250, just £20 more than the fund contained! How God provides - and
how often we fail to see Him working.'