Chapels

“The energy is no longer there,” said the Methodist minister in Reeth in 2016, as another Dales chapel closed.  As journalist Mike Amos reported, a way of life was quietly disappearing. Chapels were at the heart of village life in Wensleydale and Swaledale for around 150 years, but decline set in during the second half of the last century.  And yet in half a dozen places such as Gayle and Gunnerside the Methodists are ‘still alive’, as they like to say.  In this episode hear Walden preacher Rowland Dent, as well as Jean Cockburn from Aysgarth, Joan Fawcett from Hawes and the late Richard Dinsdale of Gayle.  It is presented by Andrew Fagg from outside West Burton Methodist Church and was recorded on 4 March 2021.