Three weddings and an anniversary at Mount Zion!

200th anniversary celebrations at Mount Zion yesterday - what a wonderful time!  The chapel was built in 1815, but the sundial on the front is from the first chapel here, known as Mount Zion Bradshaw, opened in 1773, with the cottage next door.
 

John Wesley stayed in the cottage at Mount Zion in 1774.  He records in his journal, 'I rode to Bradshaw House, standing alone in a dreary waste.  But, although it was a cold and stormy day, the people flocked from all quarters.' 

 

Thankfully it was not a cold and story day, and the people certainly did flock from all quarters! Here is Dorothy Moore, an organist and local preacher, who was a representative to the Ghana Conference, with Revd Stuart Rhodes, in 1987.

The Special Anniversary Service included the renewal of wedding vows for three couples, Alison and Bob Hillman, Julie and Neil Makin, and Wyn and Janice Markham.  What a celebration - there was scarcely a dry eye in the chapel!

A Wedding Dress display inside the Chapel brought many visitors over the weekend.  

Here is Paula Prosser, the lay worker at Mount Zion, standing beside her own wedding dress! Mount Zion is one of our Methodist Heritage Sites, and the oldest New Connexion Chapel still in use. It is well worth a visit!
  

I was thrilled to see the new garden, created in memory of Miss Irene Cunliffe (1936-2010), with t generous bequest she made to her favourite chapel - Mount Zion.  This is a peaceful space for quiet reflection, but also where children can eat their packed lunches on school visits.

 

In the garden is this stone.  It represents one of the diamond shaped windows in the cottage on which this was etched: 'Time how short - eternity how long. C.W.' Could Charles Wesley have left his mark?