24. SALVATION ARMY TEMPLE
The Salvation Army came to Fakenham in 1884 and initially met in Star Barn. They purchased the former Wesleyan Chapel when its congregation joined with The Primitive Methodists in 1932.
This building was the only one to suffer bomb damage in the war. The bombs disturbed graves in the nearby St Peter's Churchyard and there are stories of children finding human bones and taking them home (before parents ensured they returned them!). Mike Bridges recalled: One morning the war became a first-hand experience. On the way to school, there was great excitement amongst us children. During the night of 8th May 1941 there had been an air raid and an aircraft had dropped a stick of nine bombs across Fakenham, narrowly missing the parish church but sadly demolishing the Salvation Army's Temple. The bombs fell in a line from just behind Jimmy Needs' garage on Queens Road, across Newman's garden, where the car park now exists, in the churchyard, where, much to our boyish excitement, human bones were thrown up from the crater, and the last one fell in the garden of the Old Rectory. Nobody was killed, although people living next to the Salvation Army Temple had a considerable fright. Had the bombs fallen a few yards further south, Norwich Street would have been devastated.' The ruins of the chapel were demolished and the Salvation Army moved back to Star Barn until the new Temple was opened.
You should now walk down the road, keeping the Corn Exchange (now the Central Cinema) on your left, at the small crossroads on your right is the Old Post Office, now a solicitors' office. |
Wesleyan Chapel, 1913.
The temple demolished by a World War 2 bomb.
Site of the new Salvation Army Hall.
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