The total cost was £3,700, of which £780 was for purchase of the Chief Rent of the land to avoid an annual financial burden. The committee ensured that the brochure included the names of donors and amounts of money already given, no doubt to encourage support.

The new School Chapel, as it was called, opened on May 4th 1899

The Plan

The achievment

The church records show that at this time the minister at Hale had oversight of "Pepper Street Chapel" in Mobberley. We know little about this - apart from the fact that the minister would sometimes take services there in the afternoon after morning service at Hale. What transport he used is not known, but it is a fair walk between the chapels.

In WW1 the members of Pepper Street who served in the military were recorded along with those from Hale, and appear on our memorial.

The chapel is described in here as "Knolls Green, United Reformed Church (Independent/Congregational), Pepper Street. Built in 1783 as a Methodist Chapel (Wesleyan), taken over by Independents in 1803, closed in 1961. Mobberley- Knolls (also spelt Knowles) Green" The dates are confusing, claiming it was closed before the Union in 1972. However, Ringheye Morris dancers practised there after their formation in 1983 "until the chapel hall closed". (The nearby Chapel House Inn was very convenient after dancing.)
It just shows one that official histories can be wrong! In fact Pepper Street closed in 1967, then re-opened later as an independant Congregtional chapel until closure mid 1980s.

In 1880 education became compulsory for all children aged 5-10. When the Hale School Chapel opened the age range had been extended to 12, and was eventually extended to 14 in 1918. At the time, church schools provided about half the available schooling.

In 1902 the Balfour Act was passed by parliament putting education under local education authorities, it allowed for the funding of sectarian schools, notably Anglican and Catholic. Non-conformists opposed the change, arguing that (1) the rate aid was being used to support the teaching of religious views to which some rate-payers were opposed; (2) sectarian schools, supported by public funds, were not under public control; (3) teachers in sectarian schools were subject to religious tests. However, the legislation passed, but It cost the government the election.

But were the Hale Congregationalists down hearted? Well maybe, but at that time attendance at Sunday schools (which often met mid-week as well) was actually higher than at day schools. The building committee reformed in 1909 as the extensions committee and set about building an annex called the New Schools, putting building of the new church in abeyance. As the local paper reported:
"The work for the present is, therefore, limited to the building of an annexe to the school chapel which will contain three departments, each with accommodation for from eighty to one hundred children. The primary department on the ground floor will be used by the very youngest children. Others whose years are more will be taught in the junior department. while still older children will be housed in the intermediate department. Each school has its own means of access with separate class rooms, and the work of each will be entirely independent, No structural change would be made in the school chapel, but the additions to be made will make it available for large meetings and for the purposes of the senior Sunday school and institute and various forms of social work which may be determined upon in the future."

It opened in April 1911 and cost £3700.