A WEEKEND exhibition was held in St John’s Chapel Town Hall to explain what is happening at the Weardale Museum and the adjoining High House Chapel at Ireshopeburn.
Both have been closed for many months while a complete refurbishment of the chapel takes place, which will eventually see the creation of the new Weardale Museum and Heritage Centre. Inside the hall were many of the Museum’s volunteers, including Mike, the Curator, who greeted visitors with a warm welcome.
There were displays, all very interesting and showing just what treasures from the past are owned and will be on display in the new heritage centre when the work is completed. Over the weekend, work was ongoing in the chapel with the final layer of flooring being laid. The two-day exhibition and information days were to explain what is happening and to keep the story of Weardale through the Museum and chapel alive both locally and farther afield.
The first display, manned by Mike was a poignant one, showing how every Weardalian from the past is valued. Entitled, ‘Alice’s shoes’, it describes the story of a much-loved and much wanted baby girl, born in 1875. She had many brothers but her parents longed for a daughter and as she started to walk, they made sure she had shoes (clogs) to wear – some children went barefoot in those days. These clogs are in a specially built showcase and were carefully preserved after the untimely death of Alice when she was less than two years old, succumbing to Diptheria.
Another display, manned by long-time volunteer, Ken Heatherington, was fascinating, containing a few of the old books from the now defunct Westgate Subscription Library. Any collector of old books or anyone with an interest in bibliography would have seen the value in this display, which was just a fraction of the vast collection in the museum’s archives. Working class families were not able to afford to buy books, unless it was The Bible, and so paid a subscription to the village library so they could access them and other reading materials, including newspapers. Westgate was one such library and existed until relatively recently when the Museum accepted the bulk of the books.
The display also included a few panels from the stunning Methodist Tapestries Collection, the brainchild of David Heatherington, who has spent countless hours as a volunteer and been one of the driving force behind the Museum’s survival for many years. David was there too, using his expertise in this field to answer questions from visitors.
Other displays included a set of Lego models including detailed replicas of The Museum and Chapel building, the organ, the fireplace, and the old nettie. Histories were told of Weardalians like Klondyke Wilkinson who made a fortune in the Rockies and Emerson Muschamp Bainbridge, who through hard work and enormous tenacity, founded the famous Bainbridge store in Newcastle It would become John Lewis in the 1950s. The Bainbridges were one of the few wealthy Methodist families and built the now closed Methodist chapel in Eastgate.
The event also showed through a slide show projected on to the town hall’s screen how work is progressing in High House and the sheer scale of the project, which is a complete refurbishment.
Work is also in progress on the organ in the chapel which is being restored and will return towards the end of the year. Many years ago, it was completely refurbished as a project by the late Professor Robert Milburn who returned to his native Dale to retire and spent countless hours on it. The Trustees were pleased to welcome Nick Forbes, one of Robert’s pupils on the organ who went on to become Leader of Newcastle City Council and now sits in The House of Lords as Lord Forbes of Newcastle. Nick has agreed to be an ambassador for the Museum as it tries to attract influencers and funding to finish the work.
The Museum has celebrated its 40th anniversary in the 266-year-old property, opened in 1760 as a Methodist chapel in Ireshopeburn where founder, Rev John Wesley famously rode into the village a few years beforehand in 1752. Until its closure, it was the oldest Methodist chapel in the world in continuous use.
The hard-working volunteers deserve credit for their perseverance endless campaigning over the past eight years to save both the museum and chapel.
Fund raising has been very challenging in the aftermath of BREXIT and then COVID and while the Museum has received grants totalling £850,000 to bring the building back into a useable condition it has taken almost 400 grant applications and almost the same number of knock backs to raise this amount and it will take even more to finish the project. Disappointingly the Museum does not fit the criteria to have this work included in either the two major funding streams The FutureHigh Streets Fund or Pride of Place Programme as Weardale is not considered sufficiently deprived to warrant their funding and while the Old Chapel at Cotherstone was supported in 2024 by DCC through The Towns and Villages Community Resilience Fund High House Chapel in Ireshopeburn was not. Nevertheless the volunteers persevere. It may take a little longer than they had hoped but when it is done, it will be the pride of the Dale and Weardale’s history and heritage will have been preserved for generations to come. We must be patient in the meantime.
Finally we must mention Lesley and Rhia who used receipes from an old Methodist Cook Book to produce some tasty morsels to go with the teas and coffees enjoyed by visitors.
All of this is possible because of the dedication of the volunteers who would like nothing more than for others to join them. If you would like to help preserve your own history and help YOUR museum, contact
