Thursday 7 August 2014

Nottage in South Wales

I read that Nottage, near Newton and Porthcawl in South Wales was one of the earliest centres of Nonconformist activities in Wales. John Myles (1621-1683) a trier under Cromwell and the founder of Wales's first Baptist Church in Ilston, 1649, who went on to found Swansea, Massachusetts, preached in Nottage in 1657. After the Declaration of Indulgence, 1662, two licences were issued in 1672 by Charles II allowing Walter Cradock (1606-1659) the founder with William Wroth (1576-1642) of Wales's first Independent Church in Llanfaches, 1638, and a supporter of Cromwell and Howell Thomas (in William Andrews' house), a Baptist, to preach.
(Howell Harris (1714-1773) in 1743 formed a Methodist 'Society' in Nottage. Baptists leased a cottage on the site of the present chapel and were received into the Association by 1789. Differences over doctrine divided the Baptists, and the church became Unitarian.)

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