Longholme Methodist, Rawtenstall in the County of -- Lancashire --

	Longholme Methodist Chapel, Rawtenstall

During the early phases of Methodism about Longholme and Rawtenstall, the believers met in various cottages, but there was not a strong following in the village until a regular preaching-room was opened at Longholme on the premises of Mr Thomas Kay. Later he was to have a large influence in the promotion of Methodism in the area including the building of the Chapel called Longholme.

Thomas Kay of Keighley Green, Burnley whose cotton mill had burned down in that town, removed to Longholme where he purchased the ruins of an old woollen mill and re-vamped it for cotton. He built numerous rows of workers houses. First the Methodists met in the old Size House, then in a room opposite the watercourse. At length, Mr Kay on building his cottages, left four, which stood back to back, without inner walls, and this became the place of prayer for some years. Somewhere between 1798-1802 Mr James Moorhouse began classes at Longholme. By 1818 the cottages chapel was also used as a Sunday School, the Methodists had increased in number to a point where it became necessary to build a dedicated chapel. Mr Kay sold to the trustees a plot of land of the value of 200 pounds, and this has ever been the God’s-acre of Methodism at Rawtenstall.

Influenced, no doubt, by respect for Mr Kay, a devout man and a ‘mighty singer’, who for many years had contributed so largely to the maintenance of the cause at Longholme by bearing the chief expense of the work, the chapel, although situated at Rawtenstall, was called the Longholme Chapel. Within the circuit books, Rawtenstall is henceforth designated “Longholme Branch”.

James Moorhouse laid the foundation-stone of the new chapel, and it was opened in 1826. The entire cost of the chapel and school was 1,401 pounds. The private subscriptions amounted to 517 pounds, and the collections at the opening 150 pounds.

It afforded accommodation for six hundred persons, and, notwithstanding the prevailing distress, nearly every sitting was taken at the opening. The Rev. Theophilus Lessey and W.M. Bunting preached on Thursday, April 20th, the latter taking for his text, “Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation, etc.” On Sunday, Mr William Dawson and the Rev. William Carleton preached. The people, for many years after, referred to the occasion as one of gracious visitation.

James Moorhouse remained the first local preacher, having previously raised Methodist classes at Padiham and Castle Clough. He and his family remained in the employ of Mr Kay until that worthy perished in a train overturning. Mr Kay’s widow had a dream in which she was told to look after ‘old Moorhouse’ and so she saw to it that this old preacher had a pension and in addition had a portrait of the esteemed Moorhouse painted by M. Duval of Manchester and placed in the foyer of the church.

[Extracts and precis from: An Account of METHODISM IN ROSSENDALE and the Neighbourhood: with some notices of the Rise and Progress of the United Societies and of contemporary events. by Rev. William Jessop, 1880].

Mark Moorhouse 2018
Great, Great Grandson of James Moorhouse