Two cottages were rented in 1825 in Slake Terrace, thence a shift was made to the blacksmith s shop at Templetown Pit, from which a society of a hundred was ejected during the strike at St. Hilda s Colliery in 1832. But the members got back again to the shop, and powerful awakenings occurred in the neighbourhood, one of the most remarkable taking place in the summer of 1839, following upon the terrible Hilda explosion, in which fifty-two men and boys lost their lives. A chapel was built on the Ballast Hills in 1840, a leading spirit in which was John Smith, whose son Matthew was so well known to the next generation.
‘Northern Primitive Methodism’ by W M Patterson, published in 1909, p232.