Somercotes

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Description of Somercotes & Birchwood Methodist Church

In April we moved our Library into Birchwood Methodist Church from the United Reformed Church at Alfreton which had been closed and sold. The impressive Birchwood Methodist Church was built by John Smedley of Matlock and opened in 1853. It was lent to the Limited Wesleyan Methodist Free Church of Birchwood for 21 years. On 11th September 1874, after the death of John Smedley, the Church Members purchased the building for £800 from his widow.

A schoolroom was provided within the building and was open to all children of the village for a small fee. In 1910 the present schoolroom was built which was also used as a day school in wartime and during the strikes of the 1920's it was used as a centre for feeding children.

The graveyard attached to the Church has been extended, using land purchased in 1925 from James Oakes.

Our Library opens every Wednesday from 10.00a.m. until 1.30p.m. Visitors are warmly welcomed and will be able to browse through our ever-growing collection of transcriptions and other material. The number of people attending our Wednesday meetings has exceeded our expectations and we are very grateful to those who come along each week to help with indexing and filing.

Those people who have not yet visited us will be very welcome to come along and see what we hold on our Library shelves and to do any research. A map showing how to find us is given on the back page of this Newsletter.

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