PROTESTANT NONCONFORMITY.
There
were no dissenters in Kirtling in 1676 (fn. 62) but by
c. 1690 a group of presbyterians had been receiving a fortnightly lecture and were reportedly willing to hire a Sunday preacher. (fn. 63) The later
Baptist chapel traced its foundation to 1670, on
uncertain grounds. (fn. 64) About 1709 there were
eight dissenters, (fn. 65) apparently members of the
large Independent congregation at Burwell. (fn. 66)
The minister of the Isleham chapel, a paedobaptist serving a congregation still partly presbyterian, preached at Kirtling in 1758, and
several Kirtling people attended the Isleham
chapel in the early 1780s. (fn. 67)
By 1775 there was a meeting house on the
south side of Kirtling green 100 m. west of the
junction with the Street. It belonged to the wellto-do grocer Thomas Canham. (fn. 68) The congregation was Particular Baptist by 1825 (fn. 69) and
never joined the Baptist Union. (fn. 70) A new chapel
seating 200 was built on the site in 1847, under
a long-serving resident pastor who claimed
attendances of 120 and 170 at his morning and
afternoon services on Census Sunday 1851. (fn. 71)
The chapel apparently closed in the early 1920s (fn. 72)
and was demolished.
The Primitive Methodists of the Wickhambrook (Suff.) circuit were active in Kirtling in
1866. (fn. 73) By 1874 they had built small red-brick
chapels at Kirtling Green and Upend. (fn. 74) Upend
was disused by 1953 and sold in 1956; (fn. 75) Kirtling
held its last service in 1975. (fn. 76)
Footnotes
| 62 |
Compton Census, ed. Whiteman, 232. |
| 63 |
Freedom after Ejection, ed. A. Gordon, 13. |
| 64 |
Baptist Handbk. (1871), 120. |
| 65 |
W. Suff. R.O. 806/1/96 (1709). |
| 66 |
Dr. Williams's Libr., Evans list, f. 9; below, Burwell,
nonconf. |
| 67 |
Isleham Ch. Bk. 1693-1805 (C.R.S. vi), 68, 124,
198, 217. |
| 68 |
C.R.O., R 52/9/23A; P 101/26/1, schedule no. 317;
P.R.O., RG 31/2, Sudbury archdeac. no. 259. |
| 69 |
V.C.H. Cambs. vi. 176. |
| 70 |
Baptist Handbk. (1884), 162; omitted from ibid.
(1895). |
| 71 |
Ibid. (1871 and later edns. to 1885); P.R.O., HO
129/189, f. 7; C.R.O., P 101/28/8 (pencilled note). |
| 72 |
Kelly's Dir. Cambs. (1922, 1925). |
| 73 |
Camb. Chron. 18 Aug. 1866, p. 5. |
| 74 |
R. S. Blair, 'Brief Hist. of Nailing up the Old Barn
Door' (1894 printed poster: copy in C.R.O.); Methodist Ch.
Bldgs.: Statistical Returns, 1940 (1947), p. 14. |
| 75 |
C.R.O., uncat. trustees min. bk. (listed in C.R.O.
Annual Rep. (1983), p. 15). |
| 76 |
Newmarket Jnl. 18 Dec. 1975. |