Rivington Chapel Ephemera
When drawing up a new Deed of Appointment for the current Trustees of Rivington Chapel Trust, the Trustees were confronted with a requirement under the 2011 Charities Act that the land and buildings commonly known as ‘Rivington Chapel’ would have to be registered. Not much of a problem you might first think – but how do you reconstruct (prove) the title (ownership) with sufficient legal certainty to satisfy the Land Registry when there is a distinct absence of original documentation!
Fortunately, the original 1704 Indenture had been recovered in 2000 from a person living in Canada and there were copies of old trust deeds available to convince the Land Registry that the said ‘Rivington Chapel’ did indeed belong to the Trustees and that no other party had a legal interest.
Prior to this legal problem arising, the Trustees had already discussed the archiving of any remaining documents (minute book, plans, trust deeds, receipt books, year end accounts etc), in addition to those items already deposited with Lancashire Archives at Preston
Then the idea arose to create a CD of scanned images of those items of ephemera and an amazing range was revealed – these may be of interest to members of the congregation and the general public researching family and local/social history.
However, time moves on and many people can no longer use CDs in their computers. So we decided that we would load all the information onto our website.
If anybody knows of or possesses items that would make a useful addition to the collection then please contact the Trustees.