Burnley in the Great War
Providence War Memorial Loveclough
New project by Dave Drury - if anyone has information relating to the men on this memorial please E-Mail dav.drew@ntlworld.com
Click on any image below to see the names
on the memorial
Scroll down past the images for a short
history of the chapel
Loveclough village lies on the A682 between Burnley and Rawtenstall, mainly
a collection of Industrial dwellings from the 18th and 19th Century, and it
was here beneath the bleak moors that Providence’s Story begins
In 1884 a small group of Christians connected with the Wesleyan Methodist
Association in Bacup moved to live in Dunnockshaw near Loveclough.
One of their number was a Richard Bridge who set up a cotton manufacturers
at Dunnockshaw Mill.
The sparsely populated area had no non-conformist place of worship other than
Burnley, or Goodshaw at Crawshawbooth a little further on the A682 toward
Rawtenstall.
So the little band of newcomers, only five or six in number sought worship
here and there, not happy with this, they created their own society connected
with the Burnley Wesleyan Methodist Association Circuit and held their services
every Sunday at the house of Henry Crawshaw, James Madden and others whose
homes were also thrown open for use as Sunday school with about a dozen scholars.
Prosperity seems to have come quickly to Richard Bridge, for within a few
months he was able to offer £150 on behalf of himself and his wife towards
the erection of a chapel. Superintendent of the Circuit, the Reverend D.Rutherford
came to the fore with a supply of subscription books and soon they had collected
two to three hundred pounds, and a plot of land was obtained from its owner
Mr Themes Grimshaw of Peersclough, and the Lord of the Manor being the Duke
of Baccleugh. The rent of the land was to be £4.4shillings per year
with the option to purchase for £21. Building commenced in 1846 and
the original chapel opened later that year, a plain building that held about
three hundred people with a school room below and the cost was a Grand total
of £800.
The name Providence was given as a thank you to God for providing for them
and by 1850 there were 33 members and over 100 scholars. A day school was
started in 1846 and ran for several years with Andrew Brunskill and John Sedgwick
as its heads, and reading writing and spelling being taught at Sunday school.
Naphtha lamps as used on Fairgrounds of the time lit the old Chapel, supplemented
by candles, but these both stained the walls which resulted in obtaining the
services of a William Clark to lime wash the Chapel, on provision he did it
well for 10shillings and finding his own tools and lime!
Later the Naphtha lamps were replaced by paraffin, and then gas and by 1868
it was realised that this original chapel was too small and so after another
three years of canvassing the funds were sufficient for the last Providence
to be built and on Good Friday 1871 the foundation stones of the new chapel
were laid by RevJohn Garside Burnley Circuit.
