Loxley Chapel

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Spiritus Sanctus - Paranormal Urbexing added 16 new photos to the album Loxley Chapel.

3 hrs

Loxley Chapel

Built in 1787, it served its local community for more than two centuries – but it is now a scene of destruction after arsonists set it on fire in 1996. Loxley Chapel in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, was closed in 1993, and now sits among overgrown plants as an eerie abandoned place of worship.

The Grade II-listed church, once known as Loxley Methodist Church and Loxley United Reformed Church, has been left in a shocking state of disrepair. The surrounding cemetery is also overgrown with graves being lost in the foliage - provoking outrage amongst families of the deceased.

The chapel was constructed in 1787 by Curate of Bradfield the Reverend Benjamin Greaves, along with some of his friends. Upon completion in the 18th century, its consecration was refused because builders would not install an east-facing window for unknown reasons.

It was eventually sold at auction for £315 and became an independent chapel, but had an average congregation of 200 worshippers by 1851. However it soon recovered because according to the Religious Census of 1851 the average congregation at an afternoon service was 200.

But the congregation had collapsed to an unsustainable amount by the early 1990s, which saw the chapel’s closure. Many of the 240 victims of the 1864 Great Sheffield Flood, one of Britain’s worst man-made disasters, are buried in the cemetery. The flood occurred when the Dale Dyke Dam broke as its reservoir was being filled for the first time. It sent 650 million gallons of water cascading into central Sheffield while people were sleeping in their beds.

For more info on this please visit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sheffield_Flood

Amongst the bodies that are buried here are the Armitage family, who lost 12 members including five children.

RMS Titanic chief officer Henry Tingle Wilde - who is thought to have killed himself as the ship sank in 1912 - was baptised at the chapel.