Summary
Lee Mount Baptist Church began in 1846 as the Ovenden General Baptist Church after handloom weavers from Heptonstall, who had been hit by a recession, moved to work in the factories of John Crossley. The founders quickly started a Sunday School before setting up the church and, when the church collapsed, decided to continue the work of the Sunday School which remained the raison d‘être of the congregation who had no formal affiliation with a church until 1866 when it became a branch church of North Parade Baptist Church.
Having previously held the Sunday School in rented premises, in 1872 the congregation acquired their own premises at Lee Mount, alongside which, once they had become an independent church in 1892, they built the existing church, opened in 1908. For more about the work of the Sunday School, see the Lee Mount Baptist Sunday School page.
There have been three previous histories of the Sunday School and Lee Mount Baptist Church:
- In the programme for the Diamond Jubilee Re-Union 1845–1905 which is reproduced on the Lee Mount Baptist Sunday School page,
- Jubilee and memorial produced in 1922 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Sunday School building at Lee Mount, and
- In search of a city written by Joan Crabtree and Michael Jackson, the then minister, in 1977, in part to mark the remodelling of the santuary of Lee Mount Baptist Church.
In addition, a more allegorical history of the church, Enterprising journey, was published to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the chirch in 1908.
A fourth, Lee Mount Baptist Church history, is under development, based on the chapter in the 1992 history, a Brief Baptist Church History by Joyce Brooke and Joyce Patterson, about Lee Mount Baptist Church. This page also provides scans in PDF format of some of the original documents relating to the history of Lee Mount Baptist Church.
The present day
Like most churches, the congregation at Lee Mount is not as large as it was a century ago but its membership has not declined significantly though the range of its activities has changed.
It supported its own minister until March 2020 when the then minister retired. The start of the Covid pandemic resulted in the closure of its children’s work for the first time since 1845, curtailed many of the church’s activities and impeded the process of seeking a new minister. The church continues to have a morning service and, at the time of writing, has restarted the majority of the activities set out below which it supported before the pandemic.
On Sunday, 24th July 2016, it held a Songs of Praise celebrating its current work. Each aspect of the work of the church was introduced by a church member and celebrated in a song or hymn.
- Opening prayer
- Introduction
- Tuesday Bible Study: Be Thou my vision
- Wednesday Bible Study: Love divine
- Thursday Bible Study: You are the vine
- Prayer book
- Girls’ Brigade: Lord, the light of Your love
- Boys’ Brigade: Underneath the banner
- Messy Church (with St George’s, Ovenden): If I were a butterfly
- Prayer for children and young peoples’ work
- All age lunches: From heaven you came
- Keep fit: Count your blessings
- Art group: Colours of the day
- Prayer for our work in the community
- Worship group: Lord, I come to you
- Grace
This did not cover all the ways in which members of the congregation are involved in Christian witness in the area through a wide variety of local Christian organisations and initiatives.
In February 2024 the church appointed Revd Rachel Jeffreys as a Church Enabler on a six month part-time contract to assist them in their journey towards a new vision for the church and the appointment of a minister.