Machpelah

 

Fawcett ran a school at Bearley Hall and Ewood Hall, where he also lived, but in 1805 he moved to Machpelah to be nearer Ebenezer Chapel and leaving running the school to his son. It is a handsome building with a built-up arch on the right reminiscent of a small coach house. Before the houses in the row could be built, large sections of the hillside had to be cut away. They all have back yards and steps climbing up the hill, as well as their own water supply from the hillside. Fawcett named the house after the cave mentioned in Genesis 23, which Abraham bought as a burial ground. Fawcett had a vault built at the rear as a private burial place for his wife, who died in 1810. Her body was later removed and reburied at Wainsgate.

Hope Chapel, Hebden Bridge

 

After Fawcett, the need to replace Ebenezer Chapel with a larger building led the congregation to move a few hundred yards to the West and to build Hope Chapel, which was opened in 1858. A separate Sunday School building was opened in 1873 across the road on Cheatham Street. In 1879, further seats were added to accommodate the growing congregation. It was sold in 1961 to the West Riding County Council for a library. Inside the chapel is a memorial to John Fawcett and the church has numerous reminders of this heritage, including a members’ roll book, in which the first entry is Fawcett himself. The church apparently continues today. The chapel is used as a communit centre.

Ebenezer Chapel, Hebden Bridge

 

Ebenezer Chapel, Market Street, Hebden Bridge was built in 1777 as Ebenezer Chapel for Fawcett when he moved from Wainsgate Chapel. It was on the main turnpike road from Yorkshire to Lancashire. The space in front used to be the graveyard. This has shrunk with each widening of the road, but all the gravestones are still under the grass. Fawcett’s daughter’s grave is on the right, near the door. Near this, upright against the wall, is that of John Foster the essayist, who had been a pupil at Fawcett’s school. Wording on the stones reflects the Calvinist beliefs of the Particular Baptists. One gravestone is of a Henry Riley murdered in 1818 ‘because he became poor’. The building served as a chapel until 1858 and has subsequently been the home of the Hebden Bridge Times, an arts centre and antiques shop.