A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 9, Burton-Upon-Trent. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 2003.
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'Branston: Nonconformity', in A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 9, Burton-Upon-Trent, (London, 2003) pp. 174. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/staffs/vol9/p174 [accessed 26 April 2024]
Nonconformity
Thomas Snow was returned as a papist in 1657, and again in 1667 along with another man and a woman. (fn. 6) Snow was one of three people in Branston presented in 1668 for not coming to church. (fn. 7)
Thomas Wayte, a deacon at the Congregational chapel in Burton, held services in Branston apparently from 1804, having gathered a meeting to start a clothing club. His house in Branston was registered for worship in 1808. A chapel was built on the north side of Main Street in 1834, and the average attendance in 1851 was 73 adults, besides Sunday school children. (fn. 8) Services were discontinued in the late 1970s, and the building was later used for commercial purposes. (fn. 9)
A family at Rough Hay had a child baptized in the Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Burton in 1809, and a chapel for that denomination was opened at Branston in 1812. (fn. 10) Nothing further is known about it.
Primitive Methodists had a society at Branston by 1823, and houses registered in 1824 and 1832 were evidently for that society, which had 12 members in the latter year. Although the society still existed in 1842, services seem no longer to have been held at Branston and members probably went to chapel in Burton. (fn. 11) Primitive Methodists were again holding services at Branston in 1892. A chapel at the southern end of Main Street was registered in 1896; services had ceased by 1925 and the building was later demolished. (fn. 12)
A Primitive Methodist chapel built at Rough Hay in 1897 was still open in 1999 as Anslow Methodist church. (fn. 13)