Whitfield Tabernacle was designated as a conservation area on 15th January 1996.
Setting
Whitfield Tabernacle, at Kingswood near Bristol, was commissioned by George Whitfield in 1741. Its history mirrors the development of the evangelical revival of the mid-18th century. The building is now empty and verging on dereliction.
This prospectus describes:
- The evangelical revival in Kingswood
- The development of the tabernacle
- Proposals for its refurbishment
- Information on how you can help to give the building new life
History
In the 18th century local people were renowned:
"for neither fearing God nor regarding man, so ignorant of the things of God that they seemed but one removed from the beasts that perish, and therefore utterly without desire of instruction as well as means of it".
In the mid-18th century Kingswood was a coal-mining and industrial area. Local people had a reputation for lawlessness.
During the 1730s George Whitfield, John and Charles Wesley were together at Oxford University training to be Anglican priests. They became increasingly influenced by new nonconformist ideas spreading from various parts of mainland Europe.
In 1739 George Whitfield came to Bristol but was banned from preaching in Anglican churches because of his ideas. On 17th February 1739 he preached for the first time in the open fields at Rose Green near Kingswood. Over the next few weeks he preached at various sites in and around Kingswood and the response from the previously ungodly people was immediate and dramatic.
Whitfield was due to visit America, so invited John Wesley to take over his work in the Bristol area. Wesley arrived on 31st March and the next day saw Whitfield preach in the open. He wrote in his journal "I could scarce reconcile myself to this strange way of preaching in the fields". But Wesley himself preached in the open air for the first time on 8th April 1739 at Hanham Mount, Kingswood.
Open air preaching brought the nonconformist message of Whitfield and Wesley to huge numbers of people with crowds of between 200 and 10,000 recorded.
Before leaving for America, Whitfield handed to John Wesley a sum of £20 collected from the local miners to build a schoolroom. The Wesleys built the Collier's Schoolroom for the purpose of educating the children of the labouring poor, in an area known as Two Mile Hill and engaged John Cennick, a devotee of Whitfield, as a schoolmaster. The building was also soon to serve as the centre from which the Wesleys were to carry out their evangelical mission in the Kingswood area.
Whitfield, Cennick and the Wesleys were to come into conflict over differing theological views. The former favoured the continental influences of Calvinism whilst the Wesleys' Armenian stance was that of the established church. Cennick was later ejected by John Wesley from the emerging Methodist Society in Whitfield's absence, for preaching Calvinistic predestination.
On his return from America, Whitfield was to concede his claims to the Collier's Schoolroom and instructed John Cennick to build a new meeting room for their Calvinistic followers. His instructions were "not to build too large or too handsome as we may be required to move our tents". This alludes to the moveable places of worship known as tabernacles used by the Israelites in the wilderness which God had intended to build (Exodus chapter 25-27).
This act resulted in the first building phase of Whitfield Tabernacle which opened early in 1742.
John Cennick was to become increasingly under the influence of the United Brethren and in 1745 resigned as a Calvinistic minister to join the Moravian church. He had attempted to bring the tabernacle under the control of the Brethren but Whitfield's followers resisted and maintained possession of the building.
Cennick was to spend the last few days of his short life in Ireland but had sown the seeds of Moravianis in Kingswood before his departure. They were to open a meeting house here two years after his death in 1757.
The original Collier's schoolroom built and run by the Wesleys developed into Kingswood School, which after educating many young people in the Kingswood area moved to Lansdown in Bath. The original schoolroom has been demolished.
Cennick's Moravian church building of 1757 has also been demolished. It is therefore particularly important that Whitfield's tabernacle be retained so that future generations will have a tangible reminder of the central role Kingswood played in the development of the nonconformist movement.
The tabernacle site
The original tabernacle building of 1741 was extended in 1802 and 1830. However by the mid-19th century the old meeting room was too small and outdated to accommodate the growing congregation and a new church was built nearby.
This was designed by Henry Masters and was completed in 1851. It served until 16th October 1983 when the church was finally closed due to falling attendances.
The tabernacle, Masters Church, Chapel House and its associated graveyard remain unused and are falling into disrepair. They are currently owned by the United Reformed Church.
The tabernacle is listed as a grade I building and the Chapel House grade II. This means that it is very important that they be retained for their architectural interest and also for their part in the religious revolution that changed the world.