The Easter Sunday service at a South Holland Baptist chapel will be a bitter sweet occasion.
While the congregation celebrate the time of year, it will also be the last service to be held at the Baptist Chapel in Fleet Hargate.
A slump in numbers, particularly since the pandemic, has led the church community to reach a decision to close.
Records show that the has been a Baptist fellowship in the village since 1681, although the current chapel dates from 1876.
“It follows a unanimous decision of members, taken on March 25, that the church in its present form should close,” said acting church secretary Richard Whiteley.
The congregation is aging and he said the decision had not been taken lightly, but was the result of not being able to maintain the building and arrange events needed to generate an income for the future.
“Latterly we have a congregation of 15 to 20 for a celebration event, and between five and ten on a weekly basis,” he added.
“Once the building ceases to be a place of worship it reverts to the Baptist Union but there are things to consider.”
The adjoining burial ground is still tended regularly by family members and has to be accessible for the future.
“The believers are still here, and one or two could travel to another church. But it’s a case of numbers and cost and income. We are getting on” he added.
Each church is run autonomously and decisions are taken by the local congregation, although Fleet Hargate comes under the East Midlands umbrella of the Baptists Together.
The Rev Dr Nick Ashton, a regional minister, will be leading the final service at Fleet Hargate.
He said that the number of closures was not particularly high and that it was a decision taken by members of the congregation who, in the case of the Fleet Hargate church, were getting older.
He said that as there were several Baptist churches within a ten mile radius, it was likely members of the congregation could continue to attend services.
The building itself replaced a former chapel on the site in 1876 with the first one built in 1764 for a group originating in Holbeach around 1681 as branch of the Spalding church.
“This is a building identified as of historical interest by the South Holland District Council local list.
“It is a good example of this style of building of this period and survives with only a few changes to its original construction,” says the county’s Historic Environment Record.
