In happier times, the new Brownhills Methodist Church is opened in 1971. Image kindly supplied by David Evans.
This post is in answer to the query of 19th Noveber 2013, when Kathy Hodson of Wolverhampton, contacted me on twitter looking for the war memorial from Browhills West Methodist Church. Well, with huge thanks to reader David Evans, we’ve found it.
Brownhills West Methodist Church did indeed stand on Severn Road, Wilkin Estate, Brownhills West. This place of worship was a flat, modern building, opened in 1971 and was demolished around 2009 after suffering vandalism following it’s closure in 2004.
The new church was a replacement for the Rehoboth Chapel, which stood on the Rising Sun Junction, just on the A5 Watling Street. This chapel was demolished when the current large island was built in the 1960s.
The Rehoboth, which the Roll of Honour is thought to have originated from. Image from Memories of Brownhills Past’ by Clarice Mayo and Geoff Harrington.
We suspect the Roll of Honour initially came from the Rehoboth to the new church. When Brownhills West itself closed in 2004, the memorial was transferred to Silver Street Methodist Church in Brownhills, where it hangs to this day, as photographed by David Evans below.
I actually have a lot more material about these two lost places of worship that David has managed to discover, which I’ll cover in a later post; but thanks to him for this – a great bit of detective work from a man without whom this blog would be buggered, frankly.
Cheers, David, and thanks Kathy, for asking such an interesting question.
The roll of honour that hung initially in the Rehoboth, then moved to Brownhills West Methodist Church, now in Silver Street Church, Brownhills. Click for a larger version, in which the names are legible. Image taken and supplied by David Evans.