Waltham on the Wolds is a large village in north-east Leicestershire, about 6 miles north-east of Melton Mowbray. Stonesby is a small village about one mile further to the east.
Waltham on the Wolds
Religious meetings of ‘Anabaptists’ were held in Waltham in 1669 at Henry Redgate’s house during the time of the church service on Sundays. They were said to be ‘an ordinary sort of people’. Their ‘teachers’ were tailor Henry Redgate (presumably the Henry Redgate who lived there) and Tobias Watson, a joiner of Garthorpe.[1]
No dissenters were recorded in 1676,[2] and only two in 1706, a father and son who were Quakers, but both attended church.[3]
A Wesleyan Chapel was built in 1843, at a cost of £270,[4] with 88 free and 104 other sittings. There were 65 people at the afternoon service in census Sunday, 1851, and 68 in the evening. No Sunday school was recorded.[5]
Stonesby
No dissenters are recorded in 1676,[6] or between 1706 and 1712.[7] A Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was built in 1847, to accommodate 100 people. On Census Sunday in 1851, 20 attended the afternoon service and 30 were present in the evening.[8]
Return to Protestant Nonconformity: A-Z
[1] R.H. Evans, ‘Nonconformists in Leicestershire in 1669’, Trans LAHS, 25 (1949), p. 142.
[2]A. Whiteman, The Compton Census of 1676: A Critical Edition (London, 1986), p. 340
[3] J. Broad (ed.), Bishop Wake’s Summary of Visitation Returns from the Diocese of Lincoln, 1706-1715 (Oxford, 2012), II, p. 776
[4] W. White, Hist. Gaz. & Dir. Leics. (Sheffield, 1863) p. 386
[5] TNA, HO 129/418/93
[6]A. Whiteman, The Compton Census of 1676: A Critical Edition (London, 1986), p. 340
[7] J. Broad (ed.), Bishop Wake’s Summary of Visitation Returns from the Diocese of Lincoln, 1706-1715 (Oxford, 2012), II, pp. 753-4
[8] TNA, HO 129/418/95