Our History
The Story of Ballingham Chapel
It was in the year 1904 that the original hall at Ballingham was erected. Before that date, services were held in Primrose Cottage on Ballingham Hill, now a private home. The large room used was entered from granary type steps on the side of the house. Some of the older seats which survived in the Sunday School rooms until the 1980s are believed to originate from there.
Very little seems to be known about the members of the early congregation, but it is thought to have consisted of about 15 to 20 in full membership, plus some other members of their families, and in addition other folk connected in some way with farming.
The story is told of a certain threshing contractor, named Probert, preaching one Sunday on the certainty of life after death. Outside, waiting to see him were a farmer and his son from Cockshoot Farm, Little Dewchurch, wanting to arrange for him to do their threshing. (Before the days of the combine harvester.) As they waited, they listened. At first they were annoyed that Mr Probert should be so ‘dogmatic’ that “All have sinned”, then they became so concerned that they too were included, that it became the beginning of better living for them.
Membership of the gathering came varying distances; from as far afield as Mount Boon (now the Barn House), Carey, The Moors, Little Dewchurch, Ballingham itself, and some from the Fownhope side of the river. They had to cross over by boat. It is amazing the distance that they walked, and the devotion they showed to the meeting, for to be late was to be dishonouring and disturbing.
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