The only Nonconformist chapel left standing in London from before the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts is John Wesley’s Chapel on City Road. Despite several expansions and reconstructions, this is essentially the same building in character and appearance that Wesley himself knew. Its story goes back some forty years before the foundation stone was laid, to 1739. This was just a year after he had begun his open-air ministry. But even then he realized that he needed a headquarters in London for his growing movement.
Wesley’s first building was an old foundry located in the Moorfields, which had been ruined by an explosion. It was purchased for £115 and cost another £800 to make useable. There was a chapel which could seat about 1,500, a smaller meeting room, a school room, a book room, and up above was a set of rooms where Wesley lived with his mother. Here, in the wintertime, he preached Sunday evenings and weekday mornings at 5 a.m. And here he founded a free school, a free medical dispensary and a refuge for women and children.
The Moorfields were at this time still open, swampy ground, used for sports and ice skating and infested with robbers at night. ‘1’he road from Moorgate led north through this area, and a bit further out on the west side was Bunhill Fields. The swamp across the road from the burying grounds had been filled in with earth excavated during the rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral, and there were windmills nearby used in grinding flour for bread. Here, in 1777, Wesley rented an acre of ground for the site of his new chapel.
On 21 April 1777, John Wesley pushed his way through a huge crowd to lay the cornerstone of the new chapel. Then he stood on the stone and preached from Numbers 23:23, ‘According to this time it shall be said: What hath God wrought?’ The work took about eighteen months, with various delays caused by shortage of funds, stolen tools, and so on. The first public worship meeting was held on All Saints Day, 1778. Most of the money for the chapel came from small gifts but there were a few large ones as well. The pillars used to support the gallery were masts from warships donated by King George III. In 1879 the chapel was damaged by fire but was restored in the original style.
Then, in 1891, 100 years after Wesley’s death, a major renovation was undertaken, with contributions from Methodists in many countries. King George’s masts were replaced with marble pillars; stained glass windows and the present oak pews were installed; and the foundations were strengthened with concrete. During World War II the bombing in the area of City Road levelled buildings in all directions, but miraculously Wesley’s Chapel and his nearby house came through intact. However, by 1972 the chapel was condemned as unsafe for public use. An international fund-raising campaign brought nearly a million pounds from Methodists in twenty-four countries. On All Saints Day, 1978, the restored building was reopened in the presence of Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh. Today, Wesley’s Chapel, with the founder’s grave at the back and an impressive statue of him in the forecourt, is open to visitors daily (apply at Wesley’s House). It is a shrine, not only of Methodism, but of the entire Nonconformist heritage in London.