Whaley Bridge Uniting Church stands on Buxton Road, Whaley Bridge. On the building are two plaques. One of these high up on the wall says Methodist Sunday School 1821 the other lower down and above a road side window says Wesleyan Chapel 1867.

The two words Methodist and Wesleyan are used to describe churches whose adherents follow the doctrine of John Wesley 1703 - 1791.Wesley, one of fifteen children, was educated at Christ Church, Oxford and became a Church of England priest. However Wesley was so methodical in his daily devotions that he was nicknamed a methodist. His style of preaching was so radical that the established Church rejected him. He began to travel around the country, on horseback, preaching in public places. His message and his style of preaching attracted so many working class people that followers taking either the name Methodist or Wesleyan began to hire rooms in mills or taverns so that they could worship together in the same methodical manner.

Elsewhere a man called Robert Raikes, born Gloucester 1735, had started a school, meeting on Sunday when people were not at work. This Sunday School gave lessons in reading and writing for both children and adults, male and female. The concept of a Sunday School endeared itself to the early Methodists. They saw that it was useless giving a Bible to a person who couldn't read. So wherever Methodists began to meet for worship those same premises were utilised for Sunday afternoon education.

In Whaley Bridge in 1807 Methodists hired a room in the corn mill. Next year the Uniting Church will celebrate the bi-centenary of this first Sunday school. The mill was beside the River Goyt close to the site of today's Chemists. The mill was not powered directly by the River Goyt; water was fed through a channel which can still be seen in the angle between the Railway Inn and Reservoir Road. The Sunday School's superintendent was one John Lomas assisted by three men, Tippett, Wood and Wyld. There are anecdotal stories of children sat on sacks of corn and of the mill stones still revolving whilst the class was being taught.

Doubtless the mill also served as the first Methodist Church, space would have been limited, so in 1808 on the first anniversary of the Sunday School a room was hired at the then Cock Hotel, now called the Jodrell Arms. The mill was proving unsuitable for the numbers wishing to be taught in the Sunday School and wishing to meet for worship, so in 1810 the church moved into Rid Barn.

The Rid Barn was possibly that building to the rear of the Post Office which is now used for sorting the mail, the access passage from Canal Street is still called Chapel Street. This property became a preaching room and school. The opening service was held on Sunday June 30th 1811. The Sunday School continued to grow and by 1816 174 boys and 191 girls were on the register. More space was required so the Methodists looked for a site on which to construct a purpose built Sunday School and Preaching Room.

The site they chose was on Buxton Road. Imagine the site in 1820. There would have been an open channel of water beside the pavement, feeding water from Combs Reservoir to the canal basin. There was no railway bridge or embankment. The view in front stretched across the River Goyt to Wharfe Coal Mine and directly behind the site stood the winding gear of Thomas Gisbourne's Coal Mine.

On this site the in 1821 a foundation stone was laid. The one room building was opened on February 17th 1822 when a Reverend J. Doncaster preached two sermons. The first building cost £333. This building was enlarged in 1826 by adding a vestry and again in 1837 when the school was enlarged and an upstairs galley added. Four years later in 1841 the building doubled in size when an additional storey was added and a chapel keeper's house was incorporated into the building. The ground floor became the chapel and the upstairs developed into class rooms.

Heating the building was inexpensive as the colliery owner, to the rear, had the surplus boiler water piped into the building.

The last nineteenth century innovation was the renovation of the building in 1867. This resulted in a new chapel being built to the side of the 1821 structure. Opened on September 17 1868 the Church had seating for 700 worshipers. The organ was added three years later in 1871 and replaced in 1890.

So, a society which began in the corn mill and migrated to the Buxton Road site, with buildings constructed in 1821 and 1867 still serves Whaley Bridge in the role of Church and Sunday School. The premises also served the village as the day school until Whaley School opened in 1912.

Today we use the name Uniting Church indicating that we are moving forward uniting different traditions, Wesleyan, United Reformed and Baptist. The building today was radically altered in 1985 and inside is a plaque commemorating the opening of Whaley Bridge Uniting Church on November 1st 1986.