Witton-le-Wear's Primitive Methodist Chapel is an absolute beast. There's nothing primitive about it, and it's certainly outlived the Wesleyan chapel which used to stand over the road until the last century.

Methodism has a rich history in Witton, and was one of the first villages to be visited by missionaries round here in the early 19th century. A loose congregation was formed from 1812 which worshipped from the house of one of its followers. It wasn't until 1830 when a formal society was registered, and 20 years after that they gained their own chapel on this site. This was a modest single floor building which had a single room.

This remained in use for half a century, but the congregation grew as redundant lead miners across Weardale migrated east to the growing urban sprawls of Bishop Auckland, Shildon and Darlington. In 1901, our chapel was built.

This was constructed alongside the Sunday School next door for the Bishop Auckland circuit, which is *basically* the Methodist equivalent of a parish. Each building was to accommodate 200 worshippers and schoolchildren respectively, costing a total of £1500. Much of the funds came from local industrialists, most notably the Mein family whose coal interests sprawled South West Durham and later South Yorkshire.

For such a small village a grand Prim like this is remarkable, and certainly cast jealousy across the village as the ancient Anglican chapel was rebuilt by a certain Mr Charles Hodgson Fowler a year later for £3000!