It's Titanic Month at the Welsh Chapel
Inside they found evidence of inhabitation by drug users and vagrants, which took them a considerable amount of time to clean up. Since then the industrious pair, who are supported by a small team of volunteers, have reopened the chapel and have ambitious plans to preserve the building which dates back to 1845.
I was walking down Lancots Lane a couple of weeks ago and saw Paul, paint brush in hand, giving an exterior stone surround a good coating. Paul, who serves as chairman of the Sutton Oak Welsh Chapel Preservation Society, exudes a remarkable passion and enthusiasm for the Welsh Chapel and clearly enjoys talking about the building's history and his own family connection with the old church. Paul and his partner Caroline have created a wonderfully, friendly environment within the chapel which was built largely from industrial waste. There's an open house atmosphere with plenty of folk popping in for a cuppa, from police community support officers to workers at nearby factories.
Inside Sutton Oak Welsh chapel are the original yellow pine pews
There's plans to resume Sunday services in April. It's simply too cold to hold them in winter as there's no heating. A heritage lottery grant will be made before too long and it will be needed. There's plenty of work still to be done but what they've achieved so far is quite remarkable. In the meantime Paul is looking at other fundraising ventures, including a car washing service outside the chapel!
Paul tells me that he met Caroline in Manchester at a Titanic exhibition. Consequenty after last year's success, April is once again Titanic Month in Lancots Lane! All kinds of memorabilia connected to the ship and the 1997 film will be on show from Wednesday April 9th, including a glass-shaped dolphin necklace with jiblets of real coal from the actual ship. The New Street Singers have been pencilled in to perform at the Welsh Chapel again on April 26th. Eighty-five people turned up to hear them last year. They're expected to not just sing the hymns that were sung on board the Titanic shortly before it foundered, but they will also perform their own version of Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On.
Banner outside the Lancots Lane building - the dragon is back!
The chapel is currently open all day Wednesdays and Fridays. Why not drop in for a visit and cup of tea or coffee? You're guaranteed a warm welcome. Donations to their coffers are always welcome too!
Edit 22/3/08
The Sutton Oak Welsh Chapel Preservation Society are looking for volunteers to help out at their chapel, anytime on Wednesdays or Fridays. You can help by polishing the church pews, clearing up, gardening, brushing up or simply by meeting and greeting visitors or making a decent brew! Also the team are looking for help when their Sunday services start. Contact chairman Paul Jones on 07861117678 or by email.
CLICK AN IMAGE ABOVE FOR A SUTTON OAK WELSH CHAPEL PHOTO-ALBUM
(Point at each image for the 'Next' button)
Sutton Times Have Been A-Changin' !
A view north towards St.Helens with Sherdley Park in the background.
St.Nicholas's graveyard and the old cub hut are in the foreground.
I'm indebted to Martin Gauckwin, who describes himself as "born and raised in Sutton", who has kindly forwarded two photographs taken from St.Nicholas church tower during the 1960s. The picture above was taken in April 1964, just a few weeks after Bob Dylan had released his third album entitled 'The Times They Are A-Changin'. I expect that Mr. Zimmerman wasn't necessarily thinking of house building in St.Helens, but he could well have been as Martin's extraordinary pictures remind us of how much the area has been developed in such a short span of time.
As you can see in the photograph (above) which looks north / north-west of the New Street church - with Marshalls Cross Road and Sherdley Park in the background - there's nothing but fields past St. Nick's graveyard and the burnt out cub huts in the foreground. Sherdley Park's old entrance gates can just about be made out at the top of the picture. In the days prior to St.Helens Corporation acquiring the park in the late '40s, these were locked at night by the Hughes family.
If memory serves (I need to check this with the local history library) the land was sold in 1966 for around £250,000. Apart from Sutton Cricket Club and Sutton Park at the picture's top right, the fields have all now gone, metamorphising into Balmoral Avenue, Stathmore Grove and Sandringham Drive etc. In fact if you click on the pictures you'll see Google Earth's impression of how the area looks today.
Looking south towards Mill Lane and Sutton Manor Colliery
In the second photograph taken in July 1963, which is a southerly view towards Mill Lane, there is a similarly desolate landscape, apart from the houses on one side of Mill Lane and with Sutton Manor Colliery in the far distance.
The pit was then in its heyday, annually outputting over 300,000 tons of coal with over 1,000 miners and ancillary workers employed. Within a couple of years it would undergo a recruitment drive but despite the National Coal Board's adverts in the St.Helens Reporter in 1966 promising "permanent employment and a secure future", it would close 25 years later. I suspect that many who lost their jobs felt that another track on Dylan's seminal album from 1964, "Only a Pawn In Their Game", would also apply to them!
Edit January 2nd 2009 - James Lamb has contacted this website to inform us that he took the above photographs with vicar Revd. James Smith, while St.Nicholas church hall was being built in 1963-4 and has supplied us with higher quality versions. Thanks Jim!
