History > Nantwich Circuit

For most of its life, Audlem has been part of the Nantwich Circuit.

A Nantwich Circuit didn't exist in its own right until 1808. Initially it included Crewe until, with the coming of the railways, Crewe grew large enough to be a circuit on its own. The fragmentation of Methodism in the nineteenth century led eventually to there being three circuits based on Nantwich. The Hospital Street Circuit was Wesleyan, the Nantwich and Burland Circuit was Primitive, and the Pillory Street Circuit was United Methodist. Although nationally the strands of Methodism came together in 1933, it wasn't until 1965 that there was finally just one Nantwich Methodist Circuit. This Circuit organised local Methodism for the next forty-five years until, in 2010, it joined with three nearby circuits (Whitchurch, Crewe and Sandbach & Alsager) to form the Cheshire South Circuit. In 1965 there had been thirty-two chapels in the Nantwich Circuit; by 2010 there were just thirteen.