An important building with an assured future

The Lottery's £900K+ for the George St Chapel 

George St Independent Methodist Chapel

Tonight's announcement in the Oldham Chronicle that the Heritage Lottery Fund is going to provide £948,200 to support Age Concern's ambition to both conserve and find an ongoing contemporary use for the George St Independent Methodist Chapel is just the sort of positive news that Oldham and Oldhamers need..

It is an important building. It is one of only eleven Grade II* listed buildings within the borough. It is reputedly the oldest Independent Methodist Chapel in Oldham, if not the country.

The features important to English Heritage in listing the building can be found on this page of the OMBC Web Site and here  Age Concern: Oldham provide important details about its work for the building and their aspirations for it.

But the size of the HLF grant for such a relatively small building is stunning and demonstrates just how much investment is needed for successful conservation projects.

Viewed from Jackson Pit at the rear

The access to the Cellar Dwellings is clear

By way of explanation

The motto of the Borough of Oldham is "Sapere Aude" which translates as "Dare to be Wise." A little bit of playing with Latin gives the similarly sounding "Sperare Aude" or "Dare to Hope"

Why play around with it?

Because in many ways Oldhamers seem to have little aspiration for its better future. An aspiration: something to hope for.

A steady decline of it's traditional industrial base of textile and textile machinery manufacture over almost three quarters of a century combined with an apparent failure to find any significant replacement has bred, if not inbred, a perpetual negativism. 

New developments are often met with amazement. "What, a new bus station? Why? It's Oldham?" "What, a new art gallery? Why? It's Oldham" The same sort of comments have gone with the development of  the Sixth Form College, University Centre, Oldham the arrival of Metrolink and many other projects.

And of course there is a level of scepticism which follows the failure of many schemes, often trumpeted by Council, perhaps with premature enthusiasm, where at the end of the day developers have failed to deliver what has so often been strongly promised. 

Collectively I fear that Oldhamers have given up on its future. But they shouldn't. It reamainds the home of 200,000 people wth a right to a better future. Hence the challenge: "Sperare Aude!"; "Dare to Hope!"