Mount Tabor Methodist Church
Victoria Street, New Brimington
Chesterfield, Derbyshire, UK

Minister: Rev. Mark T. Coles
Tel: 01246 472488

Lay Worker: Mrs Helen (Nel) Shallow
Tel: 01433 639771

Introduction
New Brimington now
100 Years Ago
The story of Mount Tabor

Click here to read an article on Rev. Victor Pilott by Jack Hardwick
Click here to read an article on Rev. Percy Myers by Gerald Sawyer

Trying to map out a straight-forward chronological history of Mount Tabor has proved extremely difficult. It wasn't so much the absence of Minute Books for the period 1881 - 1940 but more the way our Church's history resembles a rather untidy bundle - people tending to overshadow statistics, much of the history bound up in Mount Tabor today. It has not been possible, even 100 years on to look back with cold analysis. The warmth of Christian comradeship and bond of faith evident in our forefathers is with us yet. What a heritage we have. What a heritage we may bequeath to our children and their children. Thanks be to God for all His servants.

To someone passing through, New Brimington is a post office, a chip shop, mainly old houses - and a chapel. Not that anyone does pass through, because New Brimington isn't on the road to anywhere, and it certainly has no merit as a beauty spot to visit. But it is an active place, lots of people, lots of children usually around. A largely built-up area, with well-cared for houses, many of them terraced and built around the turn of the century. One or two large gaps left by wholesale demolition and a line of electricity pylons give a 'run-down' impression. A touch of modernity is added by a hostel for people in care, a matching workshop, and our own Hall at the rear of the Church. The oldest 'construction' in the area is the Chesterfield Canal (1777) derelict since the late twenties and the oldest house probably the nearby farm. That's about it - New Brimington. Add a sprinkling of characters, a faint whiff of behind the times atmosphere. It must have been very different a century ago.

The most northerly houses in Brimington as late as 1850 were opposite where Brimington Club now stands. These were stone cottages known as 'Lingard's Yard'. Staveley Coal and Iron Co. built a road Victoria Street and the Cinder cottages above the chapel were the first to be built and must also be at least 100 years old. At first if you had a wheeled vehicle you had to go via Hollingwood and Ringwood to reach Brimington - only a footpath existed from Lingards Yard to Queen Street. The making of the road by Staveley Company resulted in the development of Princess Street. In 1880 the Brimington Parish Council took over the road, one of the conditions being that 'a public thoroughfare be kept open to Hollingwood Common'. In Victoria Street Staveley Coy. erected some houses for their foremen, on the same side as the chapel, these were known as 'Gentlemen's Row' up to the time of their demolition in 1965.

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.

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.

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.

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.'