Wesley's Chapel and Museum

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49 City Road, London, England EC1Y1AU020 7253 2262

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Sightseeing, Museums
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Bunhill Fields Photo - Wesley's Chapel and Museum, London, England

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Wesley's Chapel and Museum

by callen60

Ozarks, Missouri

April 22, 2008

Best of IgoUgo For English-speaking Christians, London isn’t quite Jerusalem, but it’s close. Even if you’re not Episcopalian (and I’m not), there’s a lot of history and practice that makes London’s churches and history worth exploring. On our first visit, one of ...Read more For English-speaking Christians, London isn’t quite Jerusalem, but it’s close. Even if you’re not Episcopalian (and I’m not), there’s a lot of history and practice that makes London’s churches and history worth exploring. On our first visit, one of the highlights was exploring places beyond Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s: St. James Piccadilly, St. Martin’s in the Fields, All Hallows by the Tower, and especially Temple Church (in its pre-he-who-will-not-be-named anonymity) were among the places we visited. Of course, you could spend a whole visit just chasing down Wren’s repopulation of the city worship spaces after the Great Fire (and it did occur to me to do so).

When I saw on a map that our hotel was just down the street from Wesley’s Chapel on City Road, I was excited. Half my childhood was spent in the Methodist Church, an inheritance from my father’s family, and although that’s not my denomination any longer, my opinion of Wesley has only grown in the intervening years. We wouldn’t be spending any prime tourist hours in the vicinity of our City Road hotel, so I figured my one chance to visit would be during the brief Sunday opening hours after worship, between 12:15 and 1:45.

After a bus/tube/foot journey to our hotel, we checked into our room early, and while the other four immediately lay down for a 90-minute nap, I rushed up the street to Wesley’s Chapel. It was Palm Sunday, and the 11am service had concluded not long before. The congregation includes a segment of London’s West African community, and the bright, colorful outfits of those waiting for rides were a nice contrast to the grey, drizzly skies.

A statue of Wesley stands just inside the gates off City Street, with the Chapel set back about 100 yards. On one side is Wesley’s house, which I was interested in seeing, but not as much as the church and the museum in the crypt. The sanctuary is fairly simple, but quite pretty, with lots of wood and an altar that’s quite different from what I’m used to: the Lord’s Prayer and other texts are painted on large wooden panels facing the pew boxes.

On the back wall by the central door is a plaque commemorating the re-opening of the church in 1978 by HMQE2. In the early seventies, structural problems required that the Chapel be closed, and after the renovation was completed, it re-opened on its 200th anniversary. Wesley built this church to replace The Foundery, where he initially preached in London. A small chapel to the right of the sanctuary holds a pew from that original space, and offers a small place for reflection and prayer.

The 20th century renovation was the Chapel’s second: it had been redone in 1891, the centenary of Wesley’s death. Wesley had described it as a place that was ‘neat but not fine’: the pillars were originally made from the masts of wooden ships that were donated by the monarch, George III. That modesty suffered a little bit in the first renovation, as marble pillars donated by Methodist churches throughout the world replaced the original wooden versions.

In the basement is the ‘Museum of Methodism’, which was staffed by some people who were clearly hoping to head home on Sunday afternoon. I hustled downstairs, and they agreed to give me a little time in the museum, which traces both Wesley’s personal story and the development of the Methodist church. ‘Methodist’ was originally an insult given to Wesley and his followers, and it was interesting to see the negative reaction that this new church provoked, especially among those higher up in English society. I suppose that happens when you break away from a church that is both Church and State.

Wesley’s tomb in behind the Chapel, but I didn’t make it back there. But across City Road from Wesley’s Chapel is Bunhill Fields, a resting place for his mother and another estimated 120,000 souls (but only 2,000 with markers), and the chief burial ground for ‘non-conformists’. The name is a contraction of ‘Bone Hill’: those 120,000 were interred over a period of 1,000 years.

Even though it’s in the Borough of Islington, it’s owned and managed by the City of London, and is a pleasant green and tree-covered space in the city. I wandered through for about 20 minutes, finding the graves of Daniel Defoe, John Bunyan, and William Blake. It’s gated, and only open during daylight hours: the boards say 7:30, but it was often still closed when we came out to catch our morning buses elsewhere in London. Gates into the burial grounds themselves are locked, but information boards on the caretaker’s hut indicate that they can be opened by request. Those bounds also have fliers on the grounds, and the plants found in the Fields. There are guided walks at 12:30 in summer months.

If you’re following Wesley in London, the spot of his ‘conversion’ is marked with a large scroll containing his written description of that experience in Aldersgate. It’s immediately outside the main entrance to the Museum of London, in a planter on the right side of the doors.
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From journal London, Free and Easy

John Wesley's Chapel and Museum

by joellevand

Edgewater Park, New Jersey

May 2, 2005

Best of IgoUgo My mother, like her mother and her mother's mother, is a staunch United Methodist and has been since she was born. When I broke the tradition of religiosity and gravitated toward becoming a secular humanist, it nearly broke her heart, so to make it ...Read more

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Wesley's Chapel and Museum

John Wesley's Chapel and Museum