Congregational Chapel Stoke St Mary History

It was to the sound of marching armies and the roar of guns that the non-conformist tradition was established in Stoke St. Mary. The strong Puritan sentiments of the area, which, in about 1640, had prompted the Norman family of Orchard Portman to seek freedom of worship in America, were greatly strengthened by the sufferings of the Civil War. Following the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, it was natural, therefore, that Puritanism should quickly grow into active dissent from the Anglican Church. A Survey made in 1669 revealed that a group of ministers, ejected from their churches as non-conformists were preaching to large local congregations. In Stoke St Mary as many as 100 worshippers were reported and it would seem that the houses of Thomas Proctor and William Doble became the meeting-places for dissenters from many neighbouring villages. The names of both men appear on a petition sent to the King in 1672 by ten inhabitants of Stoke St. Mary, requesting that 'Mr Emanuell Harford Minister of the Gospel......may be licenced to preach to the Presbiterian Congregation in those parts at the house of Thomas Proctor at Stoake Hill'. The licence was duly granted although the freedom it allowed was short-lived. When as is believed the Duke of Monmouth made his way through the village in 1685, it was an army of Presbyterians who followed him. From Stoke St. Mary came five recruits, among them Daniel Manning, the blacksmith's apprentice, but there were certainly many others in the village who supported Monmouth's cause, as the aftermath of Sedgemoor in part revealed. But not until the 19th century, in the wake of the Evangelical Revival fostered by John Wesley, did non-conformity regain wide support in the community.  In 1821, a band of worshippers was meeting at George Weaver's home in Stoke St. Mary. Three years later on 23 June 1824, Mary and John Weaver conveyed a piece of land adjoining their house to the Rev Thomas Luke, minister of Paul's Meeting in Taunton; and it was on that land in the year following that a new Independent, or Congregational chapel, was first opened for worship. Stoke Chapel owed its foundations to the Home Missionary Society, formed in 1819 to provide for the needs of 'spiritually destitute places'. It was, in consequence an addition to the village unlikely to commend itself to the Anglican curate of the day - remembered as a gossiper on Taunton street corners - or to the prosperous inhabitants who in those years were fitting up private pews in the church. The Chapel, they could not fail to recognise, was a reproach both to complacent Anglicanism and to a community based increasingly on social inequalities. There is little doubt that the chapel supporters met in large numbers. In 1848 it was reported that 100 people were 'regaled with tea and cake' at a Sunday School gathering and on another occasion in 1849 the congregation numbered almost 300. With a Sunday congregation of 100 in 1851 the chapel was flourishing and in 1853 it became a preaching station of the newly formed Taunton Village Evangelist Society. But by 1866 the chapel had been let to the Wesleyan Society of Taunton and it may even have closed for a time. It was in 1875 that the Chapel was taken once more into the care of the Village Evangelist Society, and not until 1891 that thorough restoration set a seal on its reviving fortunes. With much celebration the Chapel was reopened on 20 August 1891. The history of the Chapel in the 20th century has mirrored the struggles and successes of its past. A new Trust Deed drawn up in 1935 marked the beginning of a period of stability which has continued until today. But there have been many difficult times. Without faithful support of its trustees and congregation - some of whom have been associated with the Chapel for almost a lifetime - it might never have survived the threat of closure in 1935 or the financial problems, first mentioned in 1910, which have returned all too frequently. When in 1975 the Chapel celebrated its 150th Anniversary, it was the Anglican rector who led prayers at the service of thanksgiving. Old rivalries are at last forgotten and Stoke Chapel, like the parish church its neighbour, now finds a new place in a modern village. There is still more work that needs to be done. Our purpose is that the worship of God may continue here, and that there will always be a welcome for men and women who want to hear the Word of God. This account of Stoke Chapel has been slightly amended from that produced previously by Mr Tom Mayberry.