Memories live on of a chapel that died

And as that seems to have been roughly 50 years ago, 87-year-old Mervyn Price, who was the organist there for well over 40 years, must be one of the few who can remember it.

This postcard, from the collection of Ray Farlow of Bridgnorth, depicts the "Wesleyan Chapel, Horsehay," which is long gone, but thanks to Mr Price, of Spring Village in Horsehay, we can tell its story.

"I live about 200 yards from where the chapel was in Spring Village. There's a big house on the site now," he said.

"I first went there with my brother to Sunday School in about 1932 or 1933. I would be three or four - I'm nearly 88 now.

"At the age of 13 I was the organist and remained the organist until it closed in either 1966 or 1968, I can't remember which.

"The reason it closed was that they had two Methodist churches in Horsehay. This one was Horsehay Wesleyan Chapel. The other was on the Wellington Road, Moreton Coppice Primitive Methodist Chapel, which still stands.

"The powers-that-be told us we weren't allowed to have two churches in Horsehay because they were short of ministers, so one of them had to be closed. They had an independent committee with one member from each chapel on it and decided to close this one. Theoretically they closed both of them and reopened Moreton Coppice as Horsehay Methodist Chapel.

"The reason they gave was that Horsehay Wesleyan Chapel was at the end of a poorly-lit, unmade road - which it was then, with potholes and mud.

"To get to where it was, turn in by the fish and chip shop and continue round there and when you get to the end of the row the road bends to the right and takes you by the steam trust, and if you keep on going up a little lane you come to a house facing you, and that's where the chapel was."

Mr Price says the chapel was demolished soon after closure.

"There was a lot of heartache. We had all been going there for many, many years. We loved the place, enjoyed the church, and the company, and looked after it. And then it was knocked down.

"The church is your home, if you live in a house you look after and enjoy and you are happy, and then somebody knocks it down, you are not so happy."

"It was not very big. If you look at the photograph, the large roof is the church, and at the front the two together was the Sunday School. The little building on the far left was the choir vestry where the choir met, and the kitchen. If you look on the right hand side there's a little building behind the notice. I think that's the outside toilet, which when I started at the chapel was a pit toilet."

Mr Price, who became organist at the old chapel in 1942, is still going to church in Horsehay - to the Moreton Coppice chapel which won that contest which spelt the demise of his own chapel all those years ago.