Mount Pleasant Chapel, Burnley

The Mount Pleasant Baptist Chapel on Hammerton Street in Burnley seems to have been originally built by the Wesleyans in 1835, but was sold to the Baptists who altered it (by digging out a baptistry?) in 1868-71. Although breathing folk can still remember it as a church which may only have closed in 1997, the building seems to have then served as a venue for the town’s nightlife: Fusion and, more recently, Mode. The latter had its premises licence revoked in September 2023 after the police objected on grounds of public safety and prevention of crime and disorder. There it now sits, forlorn and empty, a place where Christ was once preached, where booze was sold and glugged, and now where nothing happens at all. It has been suggested as a place for our new Burnley church, but old buildings of dubious heritage are seldom straight forward to convert - much like the people who used them. Yet its emptiness is a sad verdict after two evangelical groups, the Wesleyans and Baptists, procured it in turn. What went wrong? Was it just a lack of parking? Changing demographics? Or, more ominously, did the One with the blazing eyes and burnished feet withdraw His licence, much as the courts and constabulary withdrew theirs from the seedy club?

Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Revelation 3:3

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