John Wesley's room in Broadmead Bristol, became the first Methodist Church. Other places with which he is associated are Hanham Mount, where you can see Wesley's Pulpit. TheAir Cathedral at Hanham Mount bears the inscription "Hanham Mount on
the mount at the end of this path George Whitfield and John Wesley preached
their earliestair sermons in A.D. 1739". The Baptists were the first religious denomination to send evangelists to Kingswood and they built the first meeting house in Hanham in 1714. It was recorded that religious meetings were held from 1658 onwards in Hanham Woods. However, these early preachers
were persecuted and many met violent deaths.
A preacher named Tom Ford was
chased by a mob and drowned in the River Avon at nearby Conham whilst trying to swim to safety. Another preacher who was rescued from the river at Hanham
by a collier died a few days later from exposure at the miners cottage.
There are many cases of preachers being imprisoned for life and a bronze plaque recalling the dedication of these early preachers to their faith, can
be seen on Hanham Mount together with an 80 foot high symbolic beacon.
By the
time Whitfield and Wesley arrived on the scene preachers could preach freely.
Whitfield held his firstair sermon on Saturday 17th February 1739 on a mount in Kingswood to a crowd of about 200 people, and it is recorded that he was in Kingswood the following Wednesday and preached to an estimated crowd of 2,000. John Wesley followed Whitfield's example and he records in his Journal on Saturday 31st March 1739-I reached Bristol and met Mr.Whitfield
there. I could scarce reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which he set me an example on Sunday. But Wesley
soon became accustomed to Whitfield's methods of preaching and later carried
on Whitfield's good work.
"Few persons have lived long in the West of England
who have not heard of the colliers of Kingswood, a people famous from the beginning hitherto for neither fearing God nor regarding man, so ignorant of the things of God that they seemed but one remove from the beasts that perish and, therefore, utterly without desire of instruction, church or no church, we
must attend to the saving of souls". wrote Wesley in 1740.
Wesley stayed in the area and continued to preach to the Kingswood Colliers and there is a Sunday School and meeting Room, which dates back to the 1850's dedicated to John Wesley in the Kingswood area.
A Gothic building and the largest place of worship in Kingswood was built to celebrate the 165th Anniversary of the
Non Conformist Religious Movement. The Green light of the Beacon marking the site of John Wesley's firstair sermon is visible from many points of the Parish. It reminds us that this area also played an important part in the
rise of Methodism.
