Long Stanton: Nonconformity

NONCONFORMITY

The Quakers are known to have had contacts in Long Stanton in 1657, (fn. 1) five dissenters were recorded in 1676, (fn. 2) and villagers were presented for adherence to the sect in the 1680s. (fn. 3)

In 1783 there were three or four dissenting families in All Saints and one in St. Michael's. (fn. 4) Buildings were registered for their worship in All Saints in 1789 and St. Michael's in 1799. (fn. 5) Later there were two small Methodist congregations. The Cambridge Wesleyan circuit established a branch before 1818 and had four members in 1824. (fn. 6) A building in St. Michael's parish registered in 1822 (fn. 7) was replaced in 1826 by a brick chapel, seating 100, on Over Road just off High Street. It was attended by 60 people at the afternoon service on Census Sunday 1851, though by rather fewer in the morning and evening, (fn. 8) perhaps bearing out the vicar's contention that many dissenters also attended church. (fn. 9) By 1897, when it was the only nonconformist chapel in Long Stanton, half the population of All Saints and a quarter of St. Michael's were said to be dissenters, though some of them were Baptists, (fn. 10) presumably attending meetings elsewhere. The Wesleyan chapel in 1877 joined the Cottenham circuit, which was reunited with the Cambridge circuit in 1952. (fn. 11) The chapel closed in 1970, (fn. 12) but the building remained standing in 1984.

Primitive Methodists were by 1851 using a building in St. Michael's parish, probably the barn recorded in 1873. Two services were held on Census Sunday 1851, 35 attending in the afternoon and 45 in the evening. (fn. 13) The congregation, which was part of the Cambridge circuit, had over 20 members in the late 1870s but only II when it was disbanded in 1885. (fn. 14)