The Methodist Church
(The following abridged details are published here with kind permission of John Barnes and come from his books "A History of Caston" published 1974)
Situated opposite Windmill Stores and within sight of the fine windmill across the fields, is the Methodist Church, known for so long as The Chapel. The original building of clay lump, measuring internally only 34 feet by 16 feet and seating only 68, was built in 1818 by, it is believed, the Wesleyan Movement. The entry in the Register of Meetinghouses 1810-24 from the Norwich Diocesan records reads as follows:-
CASTON - On the fourteenth day of November 1818 it was certified by John Robert Barnard and Thomas Warren, Trustees for a Chapel lately erected in the Parish of Caston in the County of Norfolk and Diocese of Norwich (by a written certificate under their hands bearing date the thirteenth day of the same instant November) That the said Chapel is intended forthwith to be used as a place of religious worship by an assembly or congregation of protestants.
Directories from 1845 to 1865 give the Chapel as belonging to the Wesleyans but by 1878 it had become the property of the Primitive Methodists who in that year undertook restoration work which included encasing the clay lump with brickwork. There is a local belief that the building was once owned by the Wesleyan Reform Union which was formed in 1859. If ownership passed from this body to the Primitive Methodists it must have been a unique step having regard to the relationship existing between them. Indeed the Primitive Methodists did not recognize the Wesleyan Reform Union.
A point of interest in the extract above is the close connection between the Barnard
family and The Chapel which existed in 1818 and which still exists through Miss Ivy E. Barnard and her relatives in 1974, although it does seem that there was no direct line of descent.
The schoolroom, with seating for about 120, and with a coal store at its southeastern end, was added in 1924 to the rear of the Chapel and at right angles to it. In 1969 the coal store was converted into a kitchen and toilet, the latter replacing an earlier bucket lavatory outside. A folding partition enables part of the schoolroom to be used as a vestry. There are two framed pictures, one of Mary with the infant Jesus and another of Jesus on "The Hilltop at Nazareth", the latter presented by Mr. and Mrs. James Banham of Hendon, Middlesex, in 1951 in memory of Mr. Banham's grandmother, Mrs. Houchin. Mr. Banham's widow Olive is sister to Mr. Charles Banham, Church Warden: an ecumenical link. A Memorial Panel in the southeastern wall of the schoolroom bears names and initials of those who laid bricks in the panel on 4th August 1924.
A commemorative card records that the Minister was the Rev. G. R. Brake and that Mr. Ernest Buckle (for over 33 years village sub postmaster) was Treasurer.
The initials refer as follows:-
E.K.-Edward Knott; L.B.-Leonard Balls; E.B.-Eva Balls; M.M.B.-Mary M. Balls; G.M.J.-George M. Jenness;
E.A.B.-Edward A. Barnard; L.B.-Lily Banham; C.M.-Carol Macro; A.M.W.-Annie M. Ward; J. & C.S.-J. and C. Stubbs; H.D.-Henry Downes; H.M.B.-Hilda M. Barnard; E.L.F.-Emily L. Flowerdew;
W.M.W.-Winifred M. Ward; I.E.B.-Ivy E. Barnard; E.F.-Ernest Flowerdew; H.C.-Harriet Cator; J.T.B.-James T. Bambridge; G.W.M.-George W. Murrell; G.W.E.-George W. Eagling; A.T.C.-Albert T. Cator; A.C.-Arthur Cator.
Of these people, four are still resident in Caston in 1974: Mr. Edward Knott, organist at the parish church; Mr. Leonard Balls and his sister Eva, now Mrs. Nicholls; and Miss Ivy Barnard. Miss Barnard's sister Hilda, now Mrs. B. E. Cooke, lives a few yards over the parish boundary in Griston.
Mr. J. Stubbs, who is believed to have been a Local Preacher, lived in nearby Thomp¬son. He was one of the original Trustees at the time when the Primitive Methodists took over the church.
Electricity reached the village in 1935 and the Chapel was one of the first buildings to be connected to the mains, thus ousting the paraffin lamps. Heating was for many years provided by 