Duckmanton Service of Thanksgiving

Our chapel at Duckmanton was built in 1939 after meetings had been held intermittently from 1928.

Used as a place of education during the war, the chapel has served the community in a variety of ways. Its focal point as a worshipping centre within the village, the church has also hosted numerous missional activities down the years, from coffee mornings to day-trips. Like many Methodist chapels in our area, Duckmanton had a thriving Sunday School to support the development of young people and a community-focussed congregation that was built around the mining families of the time. Duckmanton played host to many weddings and baptisms throughout the village, but also memorials to those miners who lost their lives in nearby pit disasters.

In recent times, the changing landscape across society has seen a decline in many of our congregations. For some, this has led local Church Councils to decide to 'cease to meet'. Unfortunately, this was the case for Duckmanton around 2020. The chapel was made a Class of Bolsover Methodist Church, who would oversee the mission and ministry as Trustees. Since then, the chapel has provided a monthly afternoon service for those in the area to continue worship. However, numbers have continued to fall and the difficult decision to close the chapel was taken earlier this year.

Our final service at Duckmanton will be at 3pm on Sunday, August 3rdand will be taken by Rev Debbie Hodgson, Pastor of Bolsover Methodist Church. We would encourage all throughout the Circuit to support Duckmanton in their final service, as we give thanks for all the church and its congregations down the years have provided for the village. Whilst this marks an end to our work there over the past century, we also look forward to what God might re-imagine through continued mission to this and other communities in our Circuit.