Ford Hayes Farmhouse, Bentilee

The birthplace of Hugh Bourne - Ford Hayes Farmhouse
MS Virtual Earth   2008

Hugh Bourne, the founder of the Primitive Methodist movement was born in this house on April 3rd 1772 and lived here until 1788. Even in 2008 the remoteness of this farmhouse is still apparent. 

Ford Hayes Farmhouse, Bentilee

photo: © Mr Clive Shenton - Sept 2002

The Ford Hayes Farmhouse in July 2008

photo: © Fred Hughes

Farmhouse. Late 18th Century, altered mid 19th Century.

Red Brick with plain tiled roof. A ridge and gable stack. 2-storeyed, 3-bay lobby-entry plan. South front has two 3-light casement windows to the right, and a single 2-light casement window to the left. Above two 3-light casements to the right and a single 2-light casement to the left.

North front has two 2-light casements to the left and a single storey addition to the right with an asbestos lean-to beyond. Above a 3-light casement to the right, and 2 to the left.

Hugh Bourne, the founder of the Primitive Methodist movement was born in this house on April 3rd 1772 and lived here until 1788.

---

"Around the same time as the rise of the Methodist New Connexion, another wave of revival swept into the new towns. Its leading figures were Hugh Bourne and William Clowes. Hugh Bourne, was born at Ford Hayes Farm, Bucknall, on April 3, 1772. He was a shy man who, until his conversion in 1799, lived with an intense fear of falling into hell. By the year 1800, he had moved to live in Harriseahead, a village to the north of the present city. Towering above Bourne's new home was Mow Cop, a "bald hill" rising to 1,091 feet above sea level, with commanding views over the Cheshire plain.

Bourne was shocked at the moral state of his new neighbourhood, saying, "There was not in England a neighbourhood that was more ungodly and profane. A stranger could hardly go over Harriseahead without insult and sometimes not without injury." Against this background, Bourne met for prayer and Bible study with other Methodists, and flames of revival broke out in 1801, spreading quickly through the northern towns of the Potteries and beyond.

William Clowes was born in Burslem on March 12, 1780, a relative of Josiah Wedgwood on his mother's side. William became a highly skilful master potter, as well as a notorious drinker, gambler, womaniser and fighter, but was remarkably converted at an evangelistic meeting in Congleton in 1804, following what Hugh Bourne described as yet another "extraordinary outpouring of the Spirit." Clowes was to become a powerful evangelist and a leader in the revival."

"Treasures in Jars of Clay" © 1994 Robert Mountford.
 

---

Huge Bourne was trained by his father to be a carpenter; this shield, inside the farmhouse, was carved by Hugh Bourne or his father Joseph

photo: © Fred Hughes

---

also see Hugh Bourne's home in Bemersley

see article on Mow Cop - the birthplace of Primitive Methodism

 

next: St. Bartholomew, Blurton
previous: Fir Tree Farmhouse, Ball Green