Bethesda Baptist Church

Founded in 1821 by a group who migrated from the Back Street Baptist chapel. The church first met in the Back Street Baptist Sunday schoolroom and later in the converted warehouse on Wicker Hill that had been used by the early congregation of the Zion Baptist chapel. In 1822 they bought a site in The Courts, later Court Street and now in the Shires shopping mall, and erected a chapel which was opened in 1823. By 1829 the congregation numbered 400 and in 1840 a Sunday schoolroom was built. In 1856 the graveyard was closed when the new cemetery was built. In 1862 the fire that destroyed the adjacent cloth factory buildings slightly damaged the chapel. In 1868 new galleries to accommodate the growing congregation were added and these overlooked the high box pews on the ground floor. In 1890 the chapel was renovated and then had two galleries, one above the other, with a total of 840 sittings. The membership was 230 with 450 schoolchildren and a lending library. 

The chapel was again damaged in the Home Mills fire of 1930 and the congregation moved to Gloucester Road to a new brick chapel designed by WW Snailum. The old chapel was sold to the mill owners, Samuel Salter, and became part of their factory and offices. In 1931 the new chapel, with 350 sittings, opened and in 1933 a new Sunday school building opened. The church has thrived through the 20th century.

The chapel has been extended a number of times to add on facilities for Sunday School, a modern kitchen.