Bethel Baptist Church

Burnley Road East, Waterfoot

In 1839 three Baptist men who lived in or near to Waterfoot found that the villiage had no Sunday school and decided to remedy this defect by renting a room. The children who began to come to this hired room were generally shabbily dressed and the school became known as the "Waterfoot ragged school". This room soon became to small for the numbers who attended, and another room was rented at Bridge End.This building proved to be uncomfortable and inconvenient and a third one was found. This building served the purpose for the next nineteen years until a new site was found in Burnley Road and the first constituted church community was formed. The foudation corner stones for the new church were laid in August 1868. The new church, which had cost £2,600 to build, held its first service on the morning of Wednesday the 20th October 1869. In August 1870 a gala event was held and over four hundred people joined the procession. By the end of the twentieth century the membership had declined to such an extent that when, on the 25th August 1994, the last service was held, there were only ten members left. The church was demolished in 1996. Sunday school building is still standing and is now the home of The Rossendale Players and the Millennium Theatre.

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