John Wesley first preached in Buxton in 1783, which was towards the end of his life. At that time Buxton was a small village in the hills, before the Duke of Devonshire developed the town as an inland spa.
The first small chapel was built about 1797 in Higher Buxton, near what is now the corner of Dale Road and High Street. Soon after its erection the first chapel was found to be unsound in structure and inconvenient in position. It was however 52 years before a better chapel was built on the present site, that of the old cock-pit in the Market Place.
Some of the materials of the old chapel were carted up the hill and re-used, as also was some of the timber from the grandstand of the Fairfield Racecourse-but with no further betting allowed in this new Methodist Church. The new chapel was opened on 21 September 1849.
As Buxton developed as a spa the chapel was too small for the numbers attending. In 1875 Robert Rippon Duke (the architect of the Devonshire Royal Hospital Dome and the Pavilion Gardens Octagon) prepared a cruciform plan for extending the church. This used the existing nave but nearly doubled its length.
By the early 1980’s major repairs were needed to the church. The work involved constructing a concrete and steel ring beam around the whole of the church, taking off the roof and erecting a new steel-framed roof with about 12,500 new Welsh slates, restoring stonework, electrics, heating etc.
<history excerpts taken from https://www.buxtonmethodistchurch.org.uk/wp/about-us/church-history/>
This church micro is a multi cache hidden not far away from the church.
N53 15.ABC
W001 54.DEF
A) The 4th digit of the year when John Wesley first preached in Buxton
B) The 3rd - 1st digits of the year on the church headstone
C) The words of the 4th line of the main signage to the left of the main entrance?
D) The 4th digit of the year on the church headstone
E) The number of bollards at the front of the church - the number of traffic signs
F) The number of solar panels in the 1st column
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