History

Bamford is known to have been a Methodist preaching place in 1797 and, on a Chesterfield Circuit Plan for 1807 is shown as having a morning service on alternate Sundays. The first Wesleyan chapel in Bamford was built in 1821 at a cost of £120 and was a single storey building on the present site. Some fifty years later it was decided to build a new, larger chapel and a subscription list was opened. Some of the entries make interesting reading today, for example, "Gift of old stone house by Mrs Hawke, value £8 Work commenced in 1889 and the following are extracts from the accounts:

• 250 bricks from Totley 5s 7½d
• Sandgetting & loading dirt labour 4d Per hour
• Carting stone by dray & 2 horses from Stannage 16s
• 7½ cwt gas tar from Bamford mill 7s 6d
• Chimney pot 2s 6d

The building cost £755. The grand opening was on Easter Sunday 1890 and on the following day a chapel tea was held which required:

• Provisions £1/8/0,
• milk and butter 6/6d,
• three hams at 8d per lb.

In 1907, a Gas Committee was formed with authority to bring gas into the building and to sell the oil lamps and fittings. An important event took place in 1908 with the purchase of a piece of land to the East of the chapel. Electric light was installed in 1934 at a cost of £28/12/0.

In 1935 the trustees of the Ashopton Methodist chapel, which was to be inundated by the Ladybower Reservoir, debated whether to build a replacement chapel at Yorkshire Bridge or a new chapel at Bamford The war intervened and neither proposal materialised, but in 1951 the Ashopton friends generously contributed to extensions to the rear of Bamford chapel on land purchased in 1908. This allowed the main entrance to be moved from the Main Road to its present safer position on Taggs Knowle.

A major refurbishment of the building has taken place recently to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act and to allow the building to be fully utilised by church and community groups.

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