Title:
DRY STREET MEMORIAL CHURCH
Level: Category
Registers
Level: Fonds
DRY STREET MEMORIAL CHURCH
Scope and Content:
According to T/R 285/1 - quoting from the Methodist Recorder of 1899 - the church at Dry Street, Langdon Hills [strictly just inside the parish of Fobbing] originated in 1834, when Methodist services began to be held at Dry Street Farm. Local Methodists had previously attended Ebenezer Chapel at South Ockendon [the text places this chapel at Baker Street, which is in Orsett, but Orsett is not known to have had a Methodist chapel at this date, whereas South Ockendon certainly did].

Kelly's Directory of Essex 1937 records under Fobbing that 'there is a Methodist chapel, erected in 1887, and also a temporary mission church at Bell Hill'. According to the depositor the Dry Street church originally formed one congregation with the Bell Hill mission, but separated at an unknown date. The Bell Hill mission still existed in 1997, 'with around half a dozen members'.

The present Dry Street church, at TQ 696866, was built in 1931 by T.W. Cook builder of Leigh-on-Sea. It appears on Ordnance Survey 1:2500 Essex Revision sheet 81.14 (revised 1939) as 'Memorial Church (Nonconformist)'. By 1967, according to T/R 285/1, it had been 'unattached to the Methodists or any other denomination for many years'.