Mapping Methodism - Trevellas & Crosscoombe
Trevellas is a village in St Agnes parish. Its Methodist chapel opened in 1956 following the closure of other chapels in the area. This profile has been compiled by Clive Benney & Tony Mansell.
Mr G H Chilcott of Truro gave the site and the compensation received from the Air Ministry, together with a grant from the Methodist Conference, almost covered the building cost. Furniture from Crosscoombe Chapel was taken out of storage, the pipe organ, which had been temporarily used in the Wesleyan Chapel, was transferred to the new building and members of the congregation donated many new items.
1955 – October: The foundation stone of the new Trevellas and Crosscoombe Methodist Chapel was set in place, the first such ceremony in Cornwall for about a quarter of a century. Crosscoombe Primitive Methodist Chapel had been demolished for the war effort and Trevellas Downs Wesleyan Chapel was inadequate and in a dilapidated state so the community needed a new place of worship.
Both the Primitives and the Wesleyans worshipped there and, of course, as both of those groups had been incorporated into the Methodist Church the new name became Trevellas and Crosscoombe Methodist Chapel.
1956 – 9th June: The new chapel opened. It had a stage, kitchen, toilets and parking facilities which other chapels could only envy.
1980s: The congregation declined.
1991 – September 1991: The chapel closed and under the heading of “The last supper,” the “West Briton” reported. “Services will end at Trevellas and Crosscoombe Methodist Chapel with Sunday’s harvest festival. Numbers have dwindled to a handful. Decisions will be taken about the future of the 35 year-old building which is in a sparsely populated area where last century there were thriving Primitive and Wesleyan Chapels and working mines. The Revd John Haley said, ‘No one could have envisaged that today almost everyone would have a car and that there would be such a drop in chapel attendances throughout the country’.”
The Chapel was sold and converted into a dwelling.
Some of the pews ended up in the Bodmin and Wenford Railway waiting room at Bodmin. (Derek Skinner of Mithian)
1994: “The Revd Joe Ridholls retired and returned to the area. He said, “… I reflected on the situation that most of the chapels between Perranporth and St Agnes had closed: Trevellas, Mithian, Silverwell, Callestick and Goonbell. From a religious point of view the area seemed like a bit of a desert. I remember chatting to Reginald Mullett who lived in a bungalow very close to Zion House. We agreed that something should be done and for the next five years I ran fellowship meetings in his home.”
Mapping Methodism - Trevellas Downs Wesleyan Methodist Chapel
Trevellas is a village in St Agnes parish. Its Wesleyan chapel opened in the early 1800s. This profile has been compiled by Clive Benney & Tony Mansell.
1815: Earliest reference to a chapel but no information about the Society.
1823: Chapel built. (“Revd John Wesley’s Ministerial Itineraries in Cornwall” by R Symons of Truro) This was written in 1879 which may explain the disparity in the dates – 1815 and 1823.
1840: A conveyance of a Chapel on trust for the Methodists. (Record of enrolled deeds at the Cornwall Records Office) This is likely to be the building that still stands next to the St Agnes to Perranporth road but whether this was the original Chapel from 1815 we cannot be sure.
1840s: An attempt to start a Wesleyan Society. (“Friendly Retreat,” by Maurice Bizley)
1860: Trevellas Downs Society re-formed in 1860 with a membership of 26, mostly from the Mithian Society.
1898 – May: Included a number of chapels for which the freehold had not been purchased; some were subsequently obtained while others remained under lease. (Leasehold Property Return for St Agnes Circuit) Others had no fixed expiry date and were based on the practice of linking them to people’s lives. This was the case in respect of Trevellas Downs where two people were aged 32 and one was 30.
1941: The Primitive congregation from Crosscoombe transferred to here for the duration of the war having lost their buildings due to the creation of the airfield. It also provided spiritual comfort for the airmen at RAF Perranporth.
1956: Chapel closed and congregation transferred to the new Trevellas and Crosscoombe Methodist Chapel. (Rev. David Easton)
After a while it became a workshop for joiner and funeral director, Roy Bilkey.
2020: The building is still standing.
Mapping Methodism - Trevellas Bible Christian Methodist Chapel
Trevellas is a village in St Agnes parish. Its Bible Christian Meeting House is believed to have been located in Zion House. This profile has been compiled by Clive Benney & Tony Mansell.
1840s and possibly earlier: It is believed that Zion House, in what was once referred to as London Lane, was a meeting house for worship.
1873: Thomas Wills lived there and is listed in Kelly’s Directory as a shopkeeper. The entry for his children on the Mithian School register in the mid-1870s gives their address as Zion Chapel.
1909: The building was destroyed by fire and a report in the “Royal Cornwall Gazette” stated, “Some sixty or seventy years ago the building was used as a meeting house. In one of the floors of the dwelling house was a part of the pulpit used by Billy Bray and this interesting relic is gone forever.”
