A NEWLY-rebuilt Scartop Chapel occupies the right-hand background of this view showing Ponden Reservoir under construction in the 1870s.
This month, Scartop Charity will celebrate its 200th anniversary, having been opened as an undenominational Sunday School in 1818, although local Wesleyan Methodists were soon providing its superintendents.
During rebuilding in 1869, the original plaque declaring it a “General Sunday School, built by subscription, on the principles of Union and Philanthropy”, was allegedly broken and replaced by another saying simply “Wesleyan Chapel; built 1818; rebuilt 1869”.
Be that as it may, Scartop Charity has for generations been a red-letter day in the Worth Valley calendar, with services being held – weather permitting – in “the natural amphitheatre at Ponden Bridge”.
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