Ushaw Moor
Ushaw Moor Baptist Chapel
Last Updated:
7 Jul 2025
Ushaw Moor
This is a
Chapel, Place of Worship
54.778346, -1.647947
Founded in
Current status is
Extant
Designer (if known):
Still in use
A few short steps westwards from the Flass Inn and the Methodist Chapel is the village Baptist Chapel. The Baptists had a presence at the colliery since 1880, utilising a little tin hut leased from the owners of the colliery likely previously for domestic use. This first one was classed as a "mission" from nearby Waterhouses, as it was their first attempt to muster a congregation here. The growth of the congregation came in hand with heavy industrial unrest, which will have made it much harder to kindle any sort of steady attraction given the ethos of kindliness, temperance and compassion.
However, they managed and found a permanent site a decade later. The colliery owners, I'm sure much to the distaste of many who were striking shortly before, provided the land and the bricks to erect this chapel. It was completed in 1897 in the new village of Flass, now known as Ushaw Moor itself, costing £700 which is something around £80,000 today. A Sunday school was later added in 1925.
It remained a central staple of village life throughout the 20th century hosting concerts, political meetings, the local Boys Brigade and countless bazaars to raise funds for community initiatives. Much to my joy it remains used for its original purpose, with a decent sized congregation according to their website. The biggest change is pebbledash, which presumably lowers the cost of maintaining the building.
Listing Description (if available)
The pit village of Flass, later known as Ushaw Moor, boomed in the inter-war period. The first snapshot of our chapel in the urban landscape comes in 1915 where we see the Baptist Church as the right flank of Temperance Terrace, with a school and St Luke's nearby. All these were relatively new constructions, and Temperance Terrace gives us a good insight into the strict Protestant teachings provided in each of these little churches. The Flass and the Prim sit on the crossroads, while the lost Empire Theatre opened in 1912 and was demolished in 2008. Over the next 30 years a great deal more housing cropped up before the colliery closed in 1960. Employment figures withdrew in the second half of the 1920s after the pit temporarily closed, but before then were were over 800 people working at Ushaw Moor.
It's worth taking back in time slightly to the 1890s, to see Flass a couple years before the church was constructed. This was almost an extension of the existing village adjacent to the colliery, and sat on the crossroads from Ushaw Moor to Brancepeth and Bearpark. The Flass Inn is probably the oldest building in the village alongside the rows we see here. You'll notice there was a disused shaft to the north west of the village - possibly a fan shaft.
The Baptist Chapel front in June 2025. The inscribed front gable still features its establishing year.
The Baptist Chapel in the 1910s or 1920s. There's a small cupola-type structure which has since been demolished. This was taken before the establishment of the Sunday School in 1925, as seen below.
The side elevations of the chapel and Sunday School, with cream bricks poking through the pebbledash of both buildings.