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Ron Tarry wrote in his column in the NWN (undated, c.1990) about a planning application to convert Chapel House in Church Street into three flats.
His article prompted Mrs June Prictor to reply:
"I was interested to read in last week's Ron Tarry column the 'Historical reminder'.
The building now known as Chapel House, Church Street was, indeed, both a Wesleyan Chapel and a schoolroom but on the opening of the new Wesleyan Chapel in Charnham Street on June 30 1869 (demolished 1972) the chapel immediately became a schoolroom because the existing school room was "very small and ill-adapted to the purpose of a day schoolroom". A tea meeting was, in fact, held in the Church Street schoolroom at 5 o'clock following the opening, and also on the following Monday, July 5.
With the opening of the Council School in 1910 the school room closed. For many years the building was used by A.W. Neate & Son as a sale room. On Wednesdays, farm and garden produce etc. was sold in the school room, which I recall had a balcony at the east end, beneath which a small room served as the auctioneers' office. At the west end a door gave access to the first floor area. On Wednesdays farm and garden produce etc. was sold in the large hall, and two-tiered wire cages along the length of the railway boundary held chicken, ducks, rabbits, etc., for sale. Furniture sales were held on Fridays, while outside bicycles, prams, clothes mangles and a miscellany of nondescript items would be offered for sale. Both days would attract large crowds and much active bidding took place. Weekly band practice also took place in an upstairs room.
I always thought the burial ground as a last resting place of prominent Wesleyan Methodists of the town in the 19th century. One such person buried there is Mary, wife of Richard Gibbons of Eddington Ironworks, very staunch Methodists of whom Mr John Newton spoke in 1989 when he was guest speaker at a meeting of the Hungerford Historical Association and gave a very interesting talk on 'The Gibbons - Eddington'.
With regard to John Hogsflesh who died in 1875, I would venture to suggest that a descendant may have changed the surname because some 16 years later in 1891 a Robert Newton Hofland was the miller at Eddington Mill (both names being unusual).
If my memory serves me correctly, the burial ground was enclosed by iron railings, as were many of the front gardens along Church Street but during the 1939-45 War these were removed to help the war effort, as were many others around the town, and which had probably been forged at one of the town's ironworks.
To the immediate front of the burial ground stood a pair of old semi-detached cottages fronting directly on to the pavement, No. l and No. 2 Church Street, at one time occupied by Mr and Mrs New and Mrs Fisher respectively, but now replaced by the building comprising two flats.The new Wesleyan Chapel was licensed for the celebration of marriages in July, 1869. My parents were married there, I was baptised there, my husband and I married at this chapel and our daughter was baptised there so it was a sad day when the building was demolished."
The Canal Wharf, 2011