Billericay Baptist Church, Thynne Road, Sunnymede
History
According to The Baptist Magazine, London, 1835 and Whites Directory 1848 there was a Baptist chapel in Billericay formed by a congregation in 1815. This, I have been told, was in Chapel Street but closed in the early 1900s and has since been replaced by housing. So, obviously, was not the church building at this cache's location.
In fact, this building in Thynne Road was not originally a Baptist church. It was built in the 1920s by Congregtionalists and was "within the pastoral care of the Billericay Congregational Church" (The Billericay Reference Book, Wynford P. Grant Ltd., 1962).
In 1963 Christian Brethren started meeting nearby as the Greenway Assembly (Greenway is the road to the east between the end of Thynne Road and Outwood Common Road). Around 1968 the elders were negotiating the purchase of land on the Sunnymede Estate for an assembly hall. When that deal fell through, they purchased the Sunnymede Chapel from the Congregationalists and so from 1971 it was used for Christian Brethren Worship.
Over 15 years ago, with attendance numbers shrinking, the Assembly approached Billericay Baptist Church (based roughly a mile away, in Perry Street) to help out with worship and running of some church groups. And a few years later they became part of the Baptist church completely, in a quite seamless transition. And that remains the case today, with Billericay Baptist holding services and regular groups in both locations.
The cache
The cache is a black tube about 6cm in length, not on church grounds but hidden along the nearby pavement. Although the pavement itself is wheelchair-accessible, I wasn't sure how easy the cache would be to reach for a wheelchair user hence the T1.5 rating.
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