The Closing of St Mary’s, 2026 

In February 2026, an important chapter in the Christian story of Bradley came to an end.

After more than sixty years as the village’s Anglican church, St Mary’s closed for regular worship.

It was a significant and emotional moment. For generations, people had gathered at St Mary’s for Sunday worship and the great festivals of the Christian year. Children had been baptised there, couples had been married there, and families had gathered to give thanks for the lives of those they loved.

But the closing of St Mary’s was not the closing of the Church in Bradley.

The congregation continued, and a new chapter began.

From Methodist chapel to Anglican church

The building had already lived through one remarkable change of Christian identity.

It opened in 1904 as Hillside Wesleyan Chapel, built for Bradley’s thriving Wesleyan Methodist community.

When Bradley’s Methodist congregations united in the middle of the twentieth century, they chose the Methodist chapel on Skipton Road as their home.

Hillside therefore became available for another congregation.

Bradley’s Anglicans, who had previously worshipped in a tin tabernacle, acquired the building in 1961. After adaptation for Anglican worship, it reopened in March 1963 as St Mary’s Church.

For the next six decades, the former Wesleyan chapel was the Anglican church for Bradley.

More than a building

By 2026, St Mary’s contained the memories of generations.

Church buildings acquire meaning through the lives lived within them.

There were the ordinary Sundays, familiar hymns and prayers repeated week after week. There were Christmases and Easters, baptisms and weddings, funerals and memorial services.

There were moments of great celebration and moments when people simply needed somewhere to sit, pray and know that they were not alone.

For many people, therefore, saying goodbye to St Mary’s meant much more than closing a building.

It meant saying goodbye to a place woven into their own story and the stories of their families.

The final service

St Mary’s closed for regular worship in February 2026 with a special final service.

The service was led by the Rt Revd Toby Howarth, Bishop of Bradford.

He was assisted by the Revd Mike Green, Vicar of Kildwick, Cononley and Bradley, together with two former incumbents of Cononley with Bradley, the Revd John Peet and the Revd Colin Penfold.

Their presence connected the final service with different chapters in the life of St Mary’s and the Anglican community it had served.

It was an opportunity to remember, to give thanks and to acknowledge the sadness which inevitably accompanies the closing of a much-loved church.

But it was also an opportunity to look forward.

The church did not close

The distinction mattered.

St Mary’s closed. The Christian community in Bradley did not.

The Anglican congregation moved to the Methodist chapel on Skipton Road, where Anglicans and Methodists now worship together.

We call it the Bradley Church.

In one sense, the move was something entirely new.

In another, it completed a remarkable circle in Bradley’s Christian history.

Full circle

In the early 1960s, Bradley’s Methodists left Hillside after choosing Skipton Road as the home of their united congregation.

The Anglicans then moved into the building the Methodists had left behind.

Hillside Wesleyan Chapel became St Mary’s.

More than sixty years later, the movement was reversed.

The Anglicans left Hillside and moved to join the Methodists at Skipton Road.

A story which had once been about separate congregations and separate buildings had become a story about worshipping together.

A continuing Christian presence

The history of Christianity in Bradley has never depended upon a single building.

Methodists began by gathering in small groups. Anglicans began by worshipping in a house. Chapels were built, enlarged, replaced and sometimes closed. A tin tabernacle became an Anglican church. A Wesleyan chapel became St Mary’s. Methodist congregations which had once been separate became one.

And in 2026 another change took place.

The closing of St Mary’s was therefore both an ending and a beginning.

It brought to a close more than 120 years of Christian worship in the Hillside building, first as a Wesleyan Methodist chapel and then as St Mary’s Anglican Church.

But the prayers, worship and Christian service which filled that building did not end when its doors closed.

They continued elsewhere in Bradley.

The story continues

Today, Anglicans and Methodists gather together at the Bradley Church.

They do so as heirs to several different Christian communities which have served the village across more than two centuries.

The buildings have changed.

The denominations have changed.

The patterns of worship have changed.

But Christians continue to gather in Bradley to pray, to worship and to serve their community.

In February 2026 we said goodbye to St Mary’s. We did not say goodbye to the Church in Bradley. The story continues. 

The first and final services

We are fortunate to have the Orders of Service from both the opening and closing of St Mary’s. The first was used when the church was opened by the Bishop of Bradford on 3 March 1963. More than sixty years later, the final service on 15 February 2026 deliberately echoed that first occasion, including the same opening and closing hymns. Together, the two documents provide a remarkable record of the beginning and end of St Mary’s life as Bradley’s Anglican church.

View the Order of Service for the Opening of St Mary’s, 1963

View the Order of Service for the Final Service at St Mary’s, 2026

There is an especially nice historical connection worth preserving here. In 1963 the Bishop prayed that God would bless the building for its continuing use and the building and altar were formally blessed. In 2026, the final booklet said that worship would continue “in new and shared spaces”, and directed people to the Methodist Chapel from 1 March.