During 2011 our congregation at Guisborough have been celebrating their two hundred years of history - and making the link between the current Vision4Life Year of Evangelism and the work of late 18th century evangelists that led to the foundation of their church.
According to the short church history leaflet, "In 1796, Mr William Norris, an evangelist, was sent by the Evangelical Society of London to the North Riding of Yorkshire. He preached in Guisborough and in other places within the county."
Then The Revd William Hinmers, an Independent Minister from Edinburgh in Scotland, became interested in the Guisborough cause. He seems to have been living in the town before 1810, was reported as preaching in various local places since 1806, and may have had oversight charge of a church in Stokesley at the time. Within a few years, under his direction, a church was built and named The Ebenezer Chapel.
The opening was held on Thursday, 31st, October, 1811 - hence the dating of the bicentenary, although the church's origins clearly go back further, possibly to the early years of the previous century. Later on in the eighteen hundreds the plain dissenting chapel, which seated 250, was "improved" to provide the familiar Victorian facade on the main street today.
The bicentennial celebrations began earlier this year at the Spring Bank Holiday weekend, when a church picnic was held at nearby Great Ayton. This is where William Hinmers, the Church's first minister, went on to found a Congregational chapel which was eventuallyto close in 1979. This is now a private house, while the manse in which William Hinmers and his familyl lived later became a brewery.
Picnic goers noted these local landmarks, and also found the grave of William and Ann Hinmers in the parish churchyard.