Penpoll Methodist Chapel
Being a member of a religious group outside the Church of England was, from the time of the Reformation to the 19th century, not as straightforward as it is today. The Toleration Act of 1689
Penpoll Methodist Chapel
Being a member of a religious group outside the Church of England was, from the time of the Reformation to the 19th century, not as straightforward as it is today. The Toleration Act of 1689 gave some legal easement to the situation and allowed Nonconformist Ministers the right to follow their own religious beliefs and allowed them freedom of worship, provided that they pledged oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy to the reigning Monarch and recognised the Monarch’s supreme right to rule.
The Act applied to Protestants who dissented from the Church of England such as Baptists and Congregationalists and later to Methodists but not to Catholics. Nonconformists were allowed their own places of worship and their own teachers, if they regularly swore these oaths before the Justices and Jury, normally at Quarter Sessions.
The Act continued however to bar Nonconformists from certain positions, including their exclusion from political office and also from universities. Apart from the Quaker Meeting House at Come to Good, which was built as early as 1710, some of the earliest records of Nonconformist congregations in the parish are in the Penpol area.
Records show that at the Quarter Sessions held in Truro on 7th April 1807, before Justices John Vivian, Ralph Allen Daniell, Thomas Rawlings, Francis Gregor, Robert Lovell Gwatkin, Thomas Graham, James Willyams, Francis Hearle Rodd, and Edward William Stackhouse, some of the wealthiest and most influential men of the County:- “Samuel Honey of Lanreath, William Leach of Boconnoc, James Heath of Mylor, James Trenerry of Feock, and William Cock of Feock each subscribed statutory oaths required of dissenting ministers.” Again at the Quarter Sessions held in Truro on 1st May 1810 it is recorded that:- “Protestant dissenting minister James Heath, junior of Mylor, yeoman, subscribed the oath required of protestant ministers.” Later there was an Independent Baptist Church at Townsend, Feock from 1821 -39
The Oaths sworn normally led to a Meeting House Licence being granted or renewed and such was the case in Penpol where James Heath senior and junior, James Trenery and Samuel Stephens were granted such a licence in 1807. The location of this religious meeting house is not certain but many believe it to be at or close to the present site of the present Penpol Chapel. This is possibly the earliest record of a Methodist congregation in the parish.
Surviving records at the Cornwall Record Office show the system of doctrine to be followed, rules to be followed and questions for potential members of this congregation in a document dated 23 Jul 1821. It goes on to give members' names from 1821 and 1836, detail