In 2001 God gave me an exciting word form Haggai 2 v 15: "Now give careful thought - consider how things were before one stone was laid on another in the Lord's temple." I knew that this referred to our building at KCC. This led to some delving in the archives at the Local Studies Dept to discover some exciting history about the building which we now occupy.

A former Deputy Headmaster of the Rochdale Grammar School for boys (now Balderstone School), Sydney Richardson, who was born-again and fired up for evangelism in 1953 placed an advert in the Rochdale Observer to start a Sunday School on the then new Kirkholt housing estate. At that time there were no churches on the estate.

On the first afternoon 200 children turned up! Sydney got together with 6 other Christians (all Methodists) and started a Sunday School at what is now Queensway Primary School on Hartley Lane - the headmaster at the school was also a Christian! The Sunday School flourished and they soon started an evening service as well and invited the parents of the children. Then followed youth work - a "tea-club" for teenagers - with 28 non-churched youngsters there every Friday night.

By that time a church building was needed so with much sacrifice and inventiveness (Sydney kept chickens in his back garden and sold the eggs making £1000 in total - a lot of money in those days!) the building where we now worship was built in 1953 (we bought the building from the Methodist Church in 1991).

At the end of 2001 we visited Sydney and his wife in their home at Loughborough. It was a delightful and blessed appointment. He gave us a cheque for £50 for the church at Kirkholt. We really believe that at that moment he handed over a baton to us to continue the race to save souls in Kirkholt.

Further delving at the Local Studies Library produced other relevant and exciting history for us at KCC. I discovered that on the site of Queensway Primary School had been a farm, Hartley Farm (Hartley means pasture of the male deer), built in 1726.

In this farmhouse the tenants, the Heape family, started a Christian meeting in their kitchen. During the time these meetings were going on, none other than John Wesley rode on his horse through Rochdale and stayed at the farmhouse, sharing in fellowship.

How I would have liked to be in that farmhouse kitchen in the 1700s to hear the prayers of John Wesley and that little group of faithful Christians as they prayed for souls to be saved. Their prayers and those of the Christians to follow them were sown so that we too might continue to reap a harvest of souls (children and adults) almost 300 years later!

WHAT AN INHERITANCE!

Elaine Greenhalgh 2002