Pengegon is an area within Camborne – from Beacon Fore Street into Meneth Road and following the road to Pengegon. This profile of Pengegon Wesleyan Chapel has been compiled by Jo Lewis and Tony Mansell.
1799: Pengegon Methodist society existed – recorded in a circuit preachers book.
The 1st and 2nd Edition 1:2500 1880 and 1907 OS Maps record a Wesleyan Methodist chapel at this location in Pengegon. The chapel was extended to the west between 1880 and 1907 but has been demolished to make way for housing sometime in the later C20.
A Sunday school is recorded on the 1st Edition 1880 OS Map. Likely to be associated with the nonconformist chapel 176378 to the west. It Is not shown on the 2nd Edition 1907 OS Map and the site has now been built over by a modern dwelling. (Heritage Gateway)
Earlier Chapel
1841: There are leases for a chapel with the earliest dated 1841
29 Oct 1850: Certificate of registration, Pengegon Wesleyan Chapel, Camborne. Certificate of registration as place of religious worship. (Kresen Kernow MRCB/1727)
21 Apr 1854: Certificate of registration, Pengegon Wesleyan Chapel, Camborne. Certificate of registration as place of religious worship. (Kresen Kernow MRCB/1728)
The chapel may have become the Sunday School when the 1870 chapel was built.
1879: Shown on shown maps.
Seemingly lost to development.
1870 Chapel
The Chapel was on what is now Pengegon Way, a row of new builds in its place. Its history is marked by the name ‘Chapel Court’.
The now demolished former Wesleyan Chapel at Pengegon, built in 1870. The view is taken after closure and presents a very sad sight indeed. The chapel notice board is forlorn and empty of information while there is pile of rubble in the forecourt and the boundary wall is in a very poor state. A word about the building itself. Behind the chapel is the Sunday School with its separate entrance but why does the chapel itself have two entrances? I would suggest that the side door was the original entrance (as at Illogan Downs) and the main front door was added later with the words ‘Wesleyan Church’ over it. The new door looks jammed in between the two windows and is not a part of the original facade design. In the roundel within the gable are the words ‘Wesleyan Chapel 1870’. (David Thomas of Camborne)
In the two decades between 1850 and 1870 the Cornish mining and industrial economy was doing well with communities expanding and requiring places of worship. Many who worshipped here would have found employment in the local mines. Dolcoath, then the deepest tin mine in the world, was just down the road. After about 1873 the mining economy began to collapse and there was a corresponding fall in chapel attendance (through emigration) and the construction of new places of worship. Pengegon was built in the boom years.
The late Mr Charles Prisk who was a chapel stalwart and Pengegon organist for many years has made a major contribution towards the study of Cornish Methodist chapel history as, in the 1920s, he visited a huge number of the chapels and photographed their pipe organs in their interior settings. This important archive collection is held in the Royal Cornwall Museum at Truro.
There must be quite a few people still alive who attended this chapel and its Sunday School who would have reminiscences about it.
Following demolition one of the chapel windows survived and is in the custody of a Camborne resident. Departed days indeed!! (David Thomas of Camborne)
1870: Build date. (David Thomas of Camborne / Date stone)
12 Sep 1870: Consent, opening of Chapel for worship, Pengegon Wesleyan Chapel, Camborne. Consent from the Wesleyan Chapel Committee, Manchester for opening of Chapel for worship on condition that the deed be forwarded. (Kresen Kernow MRCB/1729)
11 Nov 1873: Letter, enrolment of deed in Chancery, Pengegon Wesleyan Chapel, Camborne. Letter from the Wesleyan Chapel Committee to the Reverend Thomas Chope, Camborne concerning enrolment of deed in Chancery and whether W B Smith executed it before two witnesses. (Kresen Kernow MRCB/1731)
Apr 1899: Specifications, renovation of chapel, Pengegon Wesleyan Chapel, Camborne. (Kresen Kernow MRCB/531)
1899: Renovated, possibly with the addition of the main front door to give it two entrances.
1900: Chapel re-opened after “much-needed” renovation. (Royal Cornwall Gazette – Thursday 01 March 1900)
Sep 1904: Letter, proposed new heating system, Pengegon Wesleyan Chapel, Camborne. (Kresen Kernow MRCB/536)
1907: A new Sunday school was built onto the 1870 chapel – behind the chapel with its separate entrance.
1932: The Wesleyan, Primitive Methodist and the United Methodist Church amalgamated to become the Methodist Church of Great Britain.
1932: Became Pengegon Methodist Church.
1938: Chapel re-opened after “much-needed” renovation. (Cornishman – Thursday 18 August 1938)
5 Jun 1940: Certificate of registration, marriages, Pengegon Methodist Church, Camborne. Certificate of registration for the solemnization of marriages. (Kresen Kernow MRCB/1736)
1940: Seating for 160. (David Easton, Methodist Minister and historian)
12 Jul 1948: Counterpart lease, Sunday School, Pengegon Methodist Church, Camborne. Parties: 1) Trustees. 2) Cornwall County Council. Counterpart lease of Sunday School with plan of proposed alterations. (Kresen Kernow MRCB/1737)
1979: Closure date. (SWChurches)
1977-1986: File, correspondence and papers, property, Pengegon Methodist Church, Camborne. Superintendent minister’s file of correspondence and papers relating to property, Camborne Methodist Circuit. Relating to closure and sale. (Kresen Kernow MRCB/815)
Demolished. Following demolition one of the chapel windows survived and is in the custody of a Camborne resident.