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SOMERSET
PROTESTANT NONCONFORMITY IN THE CASTLE CARY AREA
INDEPENDENTS
Castle Cary
In 1800 William Paul’s schoolroom at South Cary was licensed for Independent worship.1 Services
were held on Sunday and Thursday evenings until Zion chapel opened in the Golden Lion Yard in
October 1816. It was served from Galhampton until 1837 when Castle Cary had its first minister. In
1839 the first marriage was celebrated. The cause was said to be low in 1845 but recovered a few
years later.2 In 1847 an Independent Minister obtained a licence for worship at his house in Dimmer
but held his last service there in 1849.3 Zion chapel had a choir by 18494 and in 1851 attendance on
Census Sunday was 70 adults and 30 Sunday school children in the morning and 180 people in the
evening. The chapel seated 276.5
The Revd James Grosvenor, minister and schoolteacher, left Castle Cary for South Africa and was
first pastor of the Congregational church in Durban in the 1850s before returning to England. He
served at Street and Curry Rivel before retiring to Castle Cary to teach and died in 1912 aged 92.6
Communicants averaged 60 c. 1900.7 A mission room in Cumnock Road in 1905 and 1910 may have
1
SRO, D/D/Rm 3; D/N/scu 7/2/4.
Annual Report of the Somerset (1896) Congregational Union and of the Evangelist Society presented at the
One-Hundredth Anniversary (1896); SRO, D/N/scu 7/2/4; TNA, HO 107/937; Castle Cary Visitor May, Nov.
1899; Hants. RO 30M73/F1, p. 56, F2—3.
3
SRO D/D/Rm 9; Q/RRw 2; Hants. RO 30M73/F3.
4
Ibid. D/N/scu 7/2/4.
5
TNA, HO 129/320/1/14.
6
Castle Cary Visitor Aug. 1903, May 1912.
7
Castle Cary and District (c. 1925); Living History Group, Memories, 177.
2
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been connected with the chapel.8 In 1920 a manse, later Park Lodge, was bought with two charitable
bequests but in 1955 the last resident minister left and the house was let.9 In 1971 the church declined
to join the United Reformed Church and continued as a Congregational church with one Sunday
evening service in 1974 but closed c.1983.10
Zion chapel, built by John Whitemarsh of Cann (Dors.), opened in the Golden Lion Yard in October
1816. In 1837—9 a schoolroom and a gallery were added, the chapel was altered in 1869 and in 1893
the gallery was removed and an organ chamber built. It fell into disuse and closed and was converted
for residential use c. 1983. The former chapel stands to the rear of Chapel Yard, South Cary. It was
built of red brick and Cary stone with Y-traceried windows under a hipped slate roof with a two-storey
Sunday school extension to the rear but the interior has been gutted.
SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
In contrast to the Street area, the Society of Friends did not flourish at Castle Cary. There were
Quakers in the parish by 1675 and in 1743 a house was licensed for meetings11 but was not recorded
again. Quakers recorded in the area in the 1670s probably attended meetings at East Lydford. Only at
Alford was the society more successful for a while at least. In 1657 and 1662 two local men, Samuel
Clothier and John Cary, were imprisoned, first for non-payment of tithe and then for attending a
Quaker conventicle at East Lydford. Clothier, a kinsman of the Clothiers of Street, a prominent
Quaker family, remained in Ilchester gaol until he died in 1670. All those who attended his burial at
Alford, including relatives and non-Quakers, were fined. Nine Alford people were among those of
8
Castle Cary Visitor Feb. 1905, Nov. 1910.
SRO, D/N/scu 3/4/6, 6/3/3, 7/2/4.
10
Ibid. 7/6/5; ibid. D/PC/cas 5/5/7; Castle Cary Past and Present (1974) unpaginated
11
S.C. Morland (ed.), The Somersetshire Quarterly Meeting of the Society of Friends 1668—1699 (Som. Rec.
Soc. 75, 1978), 110, 299; SRO, Q/RRw 1.
9
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many parishes fined for attending an illegal conventicle on the highway in 1670.12 Samuel Clothier the
younger was distrained for tithe in 1690.13 The house of John Cary, possibly a son of the man
imprisoned in 1662, was licensed for worship in 170614 and appears to have had a burial ground
attached. The Quaker cause had ended by 1718 when the burial ground was let.15 It was remembered
in the early 19th century when two stones remained visible although no one had been buried there in
living memory.16
METHODISM
Wesleyans at Castle Cary
John Wesley preached at Castle Cary several times between 1767 and 1790 but Methodists were not
always welcome and fellow preacher Samuel Wells was thrown into the Horse Pond.17 In 1785 a new
preaching house with stable was given by John Horner for the use of Wesley and his appointees.18 It
stood in Horner’s, later Pither’s yard, south-east of High Street and, although the building of a new
chapel was authorised in 1827, remained in use until 1839. Music was provided by violin and bass. A
new chapel was built by Abraham Bryant further east in High Street in 1839 above a schoolroom,
which was rented out in the 1840s. The old chapel was sold to a potato merchant.19
12
J. Besse, Sufferings of the Quakers (London, 1753), I, 577; S.C. Morland (ed.), The Somersetshire
Quarterly Meeting of the Society of Friends 1668—1699 (Som. Rec. Soc. 75, 1978), 6, 31, 61, 71, 75, 108, 124,
155; Castle Cary Visitor, Sep. 1907; SRO, QS/I 126/2.
13
Besse, Sufferings, I, 649.
14
SRO, Q/RRw 1.
15
Ibid. DD/THG, box 7.
16
Ibid. A/AQP 9; ibid. DD/MY 35; ibid. tithe award; Phelps, Hist. Som. I, 461.
17
J. Wesley, Journal, (1901), IV, 277, 304, 384, 451, 471; Parson Woodforde Soc. Jnl. XX (4), 17.
18
Deed (1785) cited in Som. Co. Herald 19 May 1939; SRO, DD/SAS C/212, survey 1810.
19
SRO, D/N/frc 4/2/38; D/N/smc 4/3/77; ibid. tithe award; Som. Co. Herald 19 May 1939; Castle Cary Visitor
Jan. 1912.
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By 1851 there was a resident minister and congregations on Census Sundays were 50 adults and 40
Sunday school children in the morning and 110 people in the evening.20 A burial ground was recorded
in 1918.21 Ivy Cottage, later the Hollies, Florida Street, was purchased and furnished in 1878 to
replace a rented manse. In 1898 it was sold and a new house, Wesley Villa, was built in Ansford Lane
by Charles Thomas and Sons.22 In 1905 the Castle Cary Circuit, formed in 1850 out of the Shepton
Mallet circuit and comprising seven chapels, merged with the Glastonbury circuit to form the Mid
Somerset Mission.23 The chapel had a Sunday school and a choir of 20 in 1962 but services were
poorly attended and membership had fallen to 47 by 1976.24 In 2001 there were two Sunday services
and a resident minister but both Wesley Villa, now Blackberry Hill, and the Hollies were residential
care homes.25
The present chapel, built in 1839 above a schoolroom, is a two-storey building of Cary rubble with a
three-bayed Doulting ashlar front and round headed windows under a slate roof. The chapel was
altered in 1874 and its gallery extended to accommodate a new organ in 1875. A vestry was added in
1889 and the chapel was extended in 1895.26 The gable has a worn, bell-shaped inscription panel on
which the word Wesleyan can be seen. A Tuscan columned entrance porch with a ‘fanciful’ pediment
has been removed.27
Methodists at Lovington
20
TNA, HO 107/1931; HO 129/320/1/14.
SRO, D/N/smc 4/3/4; Castle Cary Visitor Nov. 1909.
22
SRO, D/N/smc 4/3/70; D/R/winc 14/2/14; TNA, RG 11/2395; RG 12/1901; Castle Cary Visitor Sep. 1898.
Later the house was said to have been bought in 1892: SRO, D/N/smc 4/3/4.
23
SRO, D/N/frc 4/2/38; D/N/smc 4/2/7.
24
Ibid. 4/2/72, 5/1/3—4.
25
Ibid. D/PC/cas 2/2/11.
26
SRO, D/N/smc 1/3/9, 4/3/77; Som. Co. Herald, 19 May 1939.
27
Pevsner, S. & W. Som. 116.
21
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Methodism had probably been introduced by 1827 when a building was licensed for use.28 A private
house was licensed in 1841 for an unspecified congregation, again probably Methodist,29 and in 1851
there were two Methodist congregations, both using shared buildings, both describing themselves as
Wesleyan, and both served by the same minister from Castle Cary. The larger congregation, formed in
the previous year, numbered 70 in the evening of Census Sunday; the smaller, in a private house, had a
morning congregation of 30 and an evening one of 35.30 Both congregations were licensed in 1851.31
They evidently soon merged but continued only until 1858.32 A chapel had been built by 187533 which
by 1886 belonged to the Bible Christians and was named Providence.34 It was part of the Somerton
and Castle Cary Bible Christian circuit and was rebuilt to seat 80 with an adjoining school in 1896 and
opened in the following year.35 It subsequently became part of the United Methodist church36 and was
described as Wesleyan in 1947.37 Services were held on Sunday evenings and on Tuesday evenings in
1935 and twice on Sundays and Friday evenings in 1951, on Sunday and Tuesday evenings in 1964;
the last services were held in 1965 and the building was up for sale in 1967.38 Two memorials from the
chapel, now a private house, were placed in the parish church in 1972.39
BRETHREN
The Gospel Hall in Cumnock Road, Castle Cary, of corrugated iron, was built in 1923 to replace a
temporary building in Ansford opened as a result of a local evangelist’s mission in 1920. In 1974 there
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
SRO, D/D/Rm 7; ibid. Q/RRw 2.
Ibid. D/D/Rm 8; ibid. Q/RRw 2
TNA, HO 129/320/1/10/11—12.
SRO, D/D/Rm 9; ibid. Q/RRw 2.
Ibid. D/N/smc 4/3/70.
PO Dir. Som. (1875).
OS Map 1:10560, Som. LXIV. SE (1888 edn).
SRO, D/N/smc 4/3/1, 4/3/45.
Kelly’s Dir. Som. (1902, 1931).
SRO, A/AGH 1/212; D/R/winc 13/2/2.
Ibid. D/N/smc 2/3/25; 3/4/4.
MI. in church.
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was one Sunday service and bible study on Wednesdays and in the 1980s there were two Sunday
services.40 By 1998 services had ceased but it was used as a Sunday school until c. 2000.41
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40
41
Castle Cary Past and Present (1974) unpaginated.
Living History Group, Memories, 177.
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