The building of the current chapel. Presumably the photograph was taken from an upper room in one of the cottages just across the road.
Detail from the first photograph – including the piles of bricks and the marquee where teas were provided to raise money for the building work.The congregation of the newly opened chapel. With a builder’s bench still in the foreground.A slightly different view of the same sceneRisley IM Church first joined the Padgate Walking Day procession in 1912/13 (non-conformist churches were only allowed to participate from 1908 onwards). This , we think, is the earliest photograph that has a definite link to our church on Walking Day. It shows a horse-drawn carriage on which children are in fancy dress. The year is 1925 so is perhaps the final time that a non-motorised vehicle was used. A church trip in a rather grand looking convertible charabanc. This photograph is from around 1924. Amongst those identified in the photograph are Mrs.Webb, Janey Cook, and Eva & Percy Bate.Although the year is not stated, this is possibly from 1919, the programme of events for a Grand Bazaar to raise funds to pay off church debt (presumably the mortgage from the build of the new chapel ten years earlier).And here are the inner pages of the same leaflet. This is another Walking Day photo but this one if of three girls from Christ Church Padgate (the letters C of E are marked out on the bicycle’s handle bar). The reason it is included here is that the little girl on the left is our future organist, Dorothy Swindell (nee Dean). This marks the year as around 1927. A very early example of a ‘walking day lorry’, decorated to take part in the procession. Note the old Warrington number plate and the two gentlemen following on bikes on an otherwise deserted road. Give that the earlier photo showing the horse-drawn carriage is dated 1925, this must be around the late-1920s.Another Grand Bazaar leaflet this time from 1923, again to raise funds for the church but this time with advertising from some long-lost local businesses.The inside of the same programme.A Miller’s potato wagon decorated for walking day is parked outside the chapel. Billy Miller and his son stand proudly by. Some of the gentlemen of the church – from left to right, Mr. Houghton, Mr. Higham, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Miller and Mr. Bold, Another Walking Day photo, this time with the banner, amongst the young women is May Houghton (far left). This is dated around 1930. The same group of gentlemen from the earlier photograph, now joined by Mr. Cook (second from right)From left t0 right, Mrs. Monk, Mrs. Higham and Mrs. Cook display some very impressive looking vegetables – presumably for the harvest festival display Lined up on the front steps of the church alongside one of Independent Methodism’s most celebrated characters, Horace Banner, the missionary to Brazil who spent most of his working life taking the gospel to the Amazonian Indians are Back Row (left to right): Janey Cook, unknown, Joan Seed, Audrey Higham, unknown, Horace Banner Middle Row: Muriel Davison, unknown, Eileen Rowlinson, Mary Nash, Mary Swift, Brenda Peers Front Row: Freda Lythgoe, Margaret Davies, Marian Herriman, unknown, Denise Higham, Norma Charlesworth, Doreen Seed, Joyce ParsonageA number of children from the Sunday School – dated around 1945. From left to right: Back row: Fred Smith, unknown, Flora Andrews, Hilda Clare, Beryl Taylor, Bill Dean Middle: Pat Jennings, Vivien Taylor, Pam Higham Front: Lilian Charlesworth, Marian Herriman, Muriel Davison, Audrey Leigh, Joan Seed
Risley Independent Methodist Church 