Now! Then! The ineffably peripatetic John Wesley discovers a movable pulpit in Sheffield

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Wed. 15. – I went to Sheffield. In the afternoon I took a view of the chapel lately built by the duke of Norfolk; one may safely say, there is none like it in the three kingdoms; nor, I suppose, in the world. It is a stone building, an octagon, about eighty feet diameter. A cupola, which is at a great height, gives some, but not much light. A little more is given by four small windows, which are under the galleries. The pulpit is movable: it rolls upon wheels; and is shifted once a quarter, that all the pews may face it in their turns; I presume the first contrivance of the kind in Europe.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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If Wesley had been an industrial, instead of a spiritual, entrepreneur he might have dreamt of a far-reaching combination of himself and pulpit, and designed a popemobile, or reïmagined himself as a Dalek:

I haven’t yet identified the chapel in question. It is said that the Wesleyans liked octagonal chapels because they satisfied their needs and the requirements of the church hierarchy, but I lack chapter & verse. The oldest octagonal chapel in continuous use by the Methodists appears to be the 1763 one at Yarm. Here’s an evocative picture of the original one at Heptonstall.

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Original

Wed. 15. – I went to Sheffield. In the afternoon I took a view of the chapel lately built by the duke of Norfolk; one may safely say, there is none like it in the three kingdoms; nor, I suppose, in the world. It is a stone building, an octagon, about eighty feet diameter. A cupola, which is at a great height, gives some, but not much light. A little more is given by four small windows, which are under the galleries. The pulpit is movable: it rolls upon wheels; and is shifted once a quarter, that all the pews may face it in their turns; I presume the first contrivance of the kind in Europe.

116 words.