Methodism was first established in Eltham in 1834when a Sergeant Rudd of the Woolwich Garrison was able, through public subscription, to buy land and build a chapel in Elizabeth Terrace off Eltham High Street (the site of which is behind the current W. H. Smith shop in the High Street). The site and the Chapel were formally handed over to the Wesleyan Connexion some six years later in 1840 but the chapel, which was no longer used, due to the soldiers being sent to fight in the Crimean war, was sold to the Bible Christians in 1859. The original foundation stone of the Elizabeth Terrace church is now preserved at Eltham Park.

With the coming of the Bexleyheath Railway line and the building of the Corbett estate, church membership again flourished and with it Methodism. In 1902, a site on the west side of Westmount Road was purchased and the original church was built. It was a corrugated iron structure and stood to the north of the existing church room. This building soon proved to be too small for worship and under the guidance of the Rev. Hewitson, the current church room was opened for worship in 1905.

A year later on the 25th of April the present church and its adjoining church room were dedicated as a memorial to the Reverend Dr. Walford Green, the church being formally attached to the then Blackheath Circuit. In describing the church one can do no better than quote from Darrell Spurgeon’s book "Discover Eltham and its Environs" published in 2001. "The red brick church of 1906 with Gothic and Tudor motifs. The entrance has a bold and wide traceried Gothic window flanked by pinnacles. There are two rows of Tudor windows on each side. To the right at the end of the courtyard is a church room with Gothic windows, contemporary with the church. In the interior, the chancel was formerly apsed but the apse was blocked in 1968 (though on the exterior it is still visible from Earlshall Road). The striking cantilevered gallery is original, although considerably extended in 1990. In the vestibule is the original foundation stone inscribed ‘Wesleyan Chapel 1840’, from Eltham’s first Methodist chapel which was in Elizabeth Terrace".

The original church continued to be used as the Sunday School under the leadership of Miss Annis Gledhill and it continued thus until 1923 when the Sunday School Halls were opened. These halls which lay in front of the original church, between it and Westmount Road consisted of two main halls, the southernmost one having a large stage in it and a number of class rooms which catered for youngsters of the Beginners’ Class right up to the Young People’s Fellowship (Y.P.F.).

Ethel Wymer recollects that the Church Room was used for Morning Sunday School, led by Mr. Alfred Cramp, probably until 1937/8, when it became the Junior Church. At this stage the class came into the Church for the early part of the Service. A child - suitably practised - read a lesson and then the children left, probably for the period of the Sermon and went into the large hall under the leadership of Mr. William Cray. Ethel remembers that both men made a great impact on the pupils of the time.

To cater for the ever increasing numbers of the congregation that lived on the Page Estate and in the Eltham Green areas, a sister church was constructed in 1930 in Westhorne Avenue. Its usefulness however waned some 40 to 50 years later with its congregation numbers falling and it was closed in 1980, those members who still attended Eltham Green transferring to Eltham Park.

The same period saw a number of changes to the Westmount Road church. In 1968 alterations were made to the interior of the church and 20 years later, in 1988, the Sunday Schoool complex was demolished and a new hall was built a year later at right angles to the original building and a new block of retirement flats, John Wesley Court, was built along the Elibank Road edge of the original site. Further alterations and renovations to the church were made during 1990 and the building was rededicated on the 24th of November of that year.

Prior to 1916, when the hutments in connection with the expansion of Woolwich Arsenal were built on land now occupied by houses fronting on to Earlshall and Elibank Roads to the east of Westmount Road, people coming out from the 1906 church would have had an uninterrupted view across open land to Oxleas Woods.

Before the present church was erected, the little community of Methodists in Eltham met together in one another’s houses until an iron building was provided by the generosity of Mr. Williamson Lamplough who with his brother Mr. Edward Lamplough, were to prove such good friends to the new Church. This iron building was opened exactly 100 years ago , the service being conducted by the Rev. John H. Ritson. The Pastoral charge being the hands of a retired Wesleyan Minister , the Rev. J. H. Hewitson, a saintly man possessed with much wisdom. From September 1903 to September 1904 a young lay preacher, Mr. Norman Martin, who intended to enter the Ministry, ably filled the "pulpit". The congregation consisted of a number of families whose names are remembered to this day. The first Society Steward was Mr. J. R. Chapman, a delightful old man who was a connoisseur of roses, and gave his remaining last few years to the interests of Eltham Methodism. The first Secretary of the Leaders Meeting was Mr. G. W. E. Dowsett, whose name is commemorated on the plaque at the back of the present church, whilst the first organist was Mr. Fred Fordred. Others of the congregation included amongst others, those with the following well remembered names : Almond, Weston, Payn, Lyon, Croucher, Birch, Painter, Johnson, Smith, Richards, Morsley, Walker and Sanders. Members of many of these families are still with us today.

The present Church Room was opened in 1905 and the Methodist Conference had sent us at the end of 1904, a young man from Richmond College, the Rev. J. J. Johnson, who spent a successful ministry at Eltham Park building up the fellowship as an organized fraternity. He had much to do with the planning of the existing site where the present church stands. The site of the current church was originally chosen and the scheme set in motion by the Rev. Dr. Walford Green which accounts for the fact that the church’s official title is "The Walford Green Memorial Church". Unfortunately he passed away before the building was erected, but Mrs. Green and her family contributed not only towards the cost of the building but also gave of their time and services of various kinds to the church. The Rev. Jebez Ingram succeeded Dr. Walford Green as Chairman of the District and upon him fell the principal burden of raising the money needed for the new church and its adjacent church room, totaling £7,500. Incidentally, an appeal to the Ministers of Wesleyan Methodism was launched and more than 250 sent in contributions in memory of Dr. Green.

The opening day of the present Church was on April the 25th, 1906, a memorable occasion attended by many prominent Methodists of the day and at the first Sunday service some four days later, the Rev. John H. Ritson was again the preacher.

During the First World War, when the Rev. Leslie F. Church was our minister, a corrugated iron building was erected on land where the old Sunday School used to be, adjacent to Westmount Road, for work among the women workers at Woolwich Arsenal and Sister Amy Yeo did valiant service.

The old Sunday School Hall, which was demolished in 1988 was initiated during the Rev. Benjamin A. Gregory’s ministry but was opened by his successor the Rev. A. B. Duncalf in 1923 at a cost of £5,000. It consisted of two large halls, the smaller being intended for the Primary department and the larger with class rooms down either side and a stage at the church end for the main school. For more than 65 years these halls saw many hundreds of young people passing through, many of who, have or will be with us during our year of celebration.

THE MIDDLE YEARS

In the middle years of its life, when Harold Walker was the minister, a newsletter was published once a month at a cost of 2d which detailed what was going on in the life of the church, its editor was Mr. L. A. Jordan who lived in Eltham Park Gardens. Unfortunately due to financial constraints the newsletter which was a 4 sided A5 publication was discontinued in November 1949 but it did contain in its July 1949 issue the names of twelve new members who had been received into Full Membership of the Church on the previous Whitsunday. One of those named was Peter Daone who is nowadays a Methodist Minster at Bournemouth and is to preach at the actual centenary anniversary service on the 12th of May 2002. Peter started his Methodist career at Eltham Park as a member of the Young Peoples’ Fellowship in 1948 under the leadership of the late Roy Ansell, much to the delight of the then minister, Harold Walker. Through the good offices of Dennis Johnson, who together with his wife Margaret (nee Todd), who were members of the Y.P.F, there was a "get together" of a number of the original members of the group on the 40th anniversary of their becoming members of the Church and this has in turn led to another two reunions since 1989. It is hoped that a number of those who became Church Members at Eltham Park some 53 years ago will be present at the Centenary Service on May 12th 2002. Also in the mid 1950’s a number of oratorios were performed at the church including the Messiah and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. On Remembrance Sunday in 1953 there was a broadcast service led by the Rev. H. Leggate, the administrative padre of Toc H.

As a vestry steward, one of the duties that we have to carry out prior to the commencement of each service at the church is to place the offertory plate at the front of the church and to distribute the blue offertory bags to those who are going to collect the offertory. I had often wondered what the history of the gift were behind the plate and the bags. The answer came from an article in the Kentish Times which stated that at a service held on the 26th of November 1960 these items were in memory of Henry Francis Baker. The service of dedication was led by the then minister at the church, the Rev. J. Victor Staton and the address was given by the Rev. C. Fernley Jones who had been the Methodist minister at Eltham Park from 1937 to 1941.

Mr. Baker, known as "Skipper" to the many hundreds of Boy Scouts that had belonged to the 12th Royal Eltham Group had died some 3 years earlier, on August the 28th, 1957 to be precise, a day before his 55th birthday. In 1929 he took over running the group, some three years after its formation. Under his leadership it grew to be one of the largest and best run group in the country. Mr. Baker was responsible for starting in January 1949 a then flourishing Sea Scout troop based on the river Thames at Woolwich. In the same year he was responsible for the formation of twin Wolf Cub Packs "Romulus" and "Remus" which were also attached to the 12th. The enlargement of the Group meant that the Methodist Church Hall which had long been its meeting place had become too small and so it was decided to move to a new purpose built headquarters in the Rochester Way, where it still meets today.

On St. Georges Day 1957, "Skipper" Baker was presented with the Scouts’ long service award, and also a medal of merit for his good services to the movement.

Eltham Park, unfortunately was not immune to the effect felt by all other churches in the United Kingdom, that of falling church membership since the end of the Second World War. In fact church membership has fallen by nearly three quarters in the nearly 50 years since the cessation of hostilities from over 300 to just over 80 today. However the church Council of the day looked on the bright side of things and in the late 1980’s decided in a major rebuilding scheme for the interior of the church. As the church was far too large for present day requirements, the first thing that was done was to remove from downstairs the old and somewhat forbidding pews that had been in situ ever since the church was first built 100 years ago. Then the Memorial Chapel together with a new minister’s vestry and a creche for very young children were constructed in what had been the rear section of the old church, whilst at the front the organ was placed on the south side of the church and the choir was normally seated in the north side. This move meant that the position of the organist and the choir were removed from the semi circular apse at the front of the church and this area, which had been derogatorily called by some members of the church as the "Mappin Terrace", was blanked off as was the original elevated pulpit by the stained timber, blue curtains and cross that we see today. In the body of the church, the original fixed pews were replaced by moveable chairs which aid frequent movement of the seating for various types of service as well as being far more comfortable to sit on.