Our much loved chapel - Wainsgate is at risk of having its doors shut forever. Not because it is not well used, lacks support or has no sustainable future but because its doesn't comply with modern Fire Compliance. We are nearly there in raising the finances to correct this and just need a final push to stop the doors shutting on 20th February 2017.

We have a great list of events next year - including music, art, workshops, services and a celebration and memorial to the influential John Fawcett.

In his time he was one of the greatest scholars in the land and an able preacher. He wrote several books, published a volume of hymns and founded a school for the education and training of young preachers.

Ordained at 25 he had taken the little church with its 100 members for a modest salary; paid partly in potatoes and wool. An essay on 'Anger' written by him so impressed George III that the king offered him any benefit a monarch could confer.

He loved Wainsgate so much that when he received a call in 1772 to the large and influential Carter's Lane Baptist Church in London he planned to accept the call. But at the last minute he changed his mind, and remained at Wainsgate where his salary was £25 a year . To commemorate this event, in 1782 he wrote the words to his "Blest Be the Tie that Binds" hymn, his most famous hymn by far. He and his family are buried at Wainsgate.

The organ is one of only a couple of examples of its type left in the country. The Wordsworth organ installed in 1891, is in great condition and is played by acclaimed organists.

Please help us keep this much loved chapel alive and in the community.