Wonder In the Woods

James Crawfoot and the Magical Methodists of Delamere Forest

 

Preachers and Poltergeists

Growing up locally, I had always been intrigued by the stories I'd heard regarding the Primitive Methodist preachers of North Staffordshire. Whenever I walked the ridgeway at Mow Cop, I would be reminded of the open-air services held there in the early nineteenth century, and of the semi-mystical atmosphere that has lingered in the folklore of those meetings ever since. It always struck me as wonderfully odd, that at the very moment the Industrial Revolution was gathering pace, a religious movement should emerge from the villages of the Potteries in which thousands of people would gather together on the Pennine slopes in search of heavenly visions, and in some instances - if contemporary accounts are to be trusted - to ‘speak in tongues’.

After moving to Cheshire, I then became aware of another, even more curious strand of this religious movement - one coloured by rumours of wild experience and faint suggestions of ritual practice - which based itself in Delamere Forest at much the same time. More recently still, my interest was rekindled by a brief note I encountered in an old periodical, describing a Methodist innkeeper at Mow Cop, named Zacchariah Baddeley, who had apparently captivated the local community through his reputation as a folk magician. Duly inspired, I felt the time had come to finally delve deeper into the subject. 

This piece is my necessarily imperfect attempt to peer into that world. It is not intended as a critique of the Methodist movement in any way. Rather, it is an attempt to understand that movement's place within local history and legend, and how it became so entangled with elements that - to me at least - often read like the backdrop to a folk-horror novel. 

To make sense of that convergence, it is worth first stepping back in order to consider the origins of Methodism itself; before it fractured into the forms that would later take root in places like Mow Cop and Delamere Forest.

The origins of Methodism, as a distinct branch of Christianity, began as a reforming impulse rather than a definitive separate denomination, led chiefly by John Wesley, his brother Charles Wesley, and their associate George Whitefield. While studying at the University of Oxford in the 1720s, they formed a small group devoted to disciplined spiritual practice - prayer, fasting, and charitable works - which earned them the nickname, originally cast in a mocking tone, of ‘Methodists’.

A decisive turning point came in 1738, when John Wesley experienced a profound spiritual assurance at a religious service on Aldersgate Street in London. This moment, a feeling of having his ‘heart strangely warmed’ following a particularly dour reception to his preaching earlier that day as an Anglican priest, convinced him of the power of personal faith. Soon after, Wesley and his colleagues began preaching in open fields to working-class audiences often neglected by the established Church. Their message emphasised salvation by faith and the accessibility of religion to all.

Methodism grew rapidly through a system of itinerant preaching and tightly organised local societies. Lay preachers played a crucial role, allowing the movement to spread beyond traditional parish structures. Tensions with Anglican authorities and the practical needs of their followers led to increasing independence, and by the late eighteenth century (especially after Wesley’s death in 1791), Methodism had developed into a distinct denomination, spreading across Britain, Ireland, and North America, where it became a major force in Protestant Christianity.

But long before Methodism found its voice in fields and marketplaces, and way before Wesley’s moment of clarity on Aldersgate Street, it seems the seed had already been sown for the inclusion of the more supernatural elements of the movement; for Wesley, as a teenager, had experienced a situation that would serve to inspire his open-minded nature in later life. Living with a family-friendly poltergeist.

Magical Thinking

In December 1716, the rectory at Epworth, Lincolnshire, became the stage for one of the strangest and most persistent hauntings in early modern England. The Wesley family - respectable and educated - had apparently found themselves living with an invisible paranormal entity. It began with noises; scratching in the walls, footsteps overhead, doors that shuddered without touch. Then came the knockings - deliberate, patterned, and responsive. So commonplace did the actions of this spirit become, that the family named it Old Jeffrey. This was no fleeting disturbance. The spirit lingered for weeks, moving through the house as though it possessed intention. And the young John Wesley played witness to it all.

As an adult, he would neither sensationalise nor dismiss the experience. Instead, he absorbed it into a worldview that actively left space for unseen agencies. Ultimately, Methodism was born from a household that had already confronted the possibility that the world contained within it genuine, interactive, supernatural forces. That similar unseen powers might be accessible via communion with God, was a natural connection to make; and later, it seemed that when Wesley preached, strange things would happen.

Crowds gathered in their hundreds, as hardened labourers wept openly. Women cried out. Men collapsed mid-sermon, trembling, shaking and overwhelmed. To believers, these were signs of grace, evidence that the Holy Spirit was acting directly upon the body and soul. To critics, it looked a lot like the tales of demonic possession that had been so commonplace during the witch-craze of the previous century.

Wesley’s followers were enthralled, embracing the rapture of physical transformation. This meant that Wesley himself walked a careful line. He didn’t encourage disorder of belief, but neither did he deny the experiences. He catalogued them, tested them and attempted to interpret them within a theological framework. It was clear this new religion wouldn’t be confined to just repetitive doctrine. It would manifest in the body of the believer. It would be an experience.

By the turn of the nineteenth century, however, Methodism had begun to settle into a more traditional space. It was now an international religion with strong support in the US. In England, formal chapels had largely replaced worship in open fields. Preachers became more cautious, and in line with the frugal living espoused by them, both a social respectability and a newfound prosperity crept into the everyday discourse of the movement. For some, this was seen as progress - the Wesleyan world tamed and sanitised for the mass-market. For others, it was a fundamental betrayal of the movement’s origins.

There were some who flatly refused to conform to these new ideas, and they continued to preach with the original ideals of the movement acting as a rigid moral compass. In North Staffordshire, local preachers Hugh Bourne and William Clowes sought to definitively recover what they saw as the original spark of Methodism; and their chosen method was via the ‘camp meeting’, first put into action at Mow Cop - on Sunday, 31 May, 1807.

These were not polite social gatherings. They were prolonged, immersive events based around hours of preaching, prayer, and collective intensity. Reports from these meetings describe scenes that verge on the surreal; individuals crying out as though struck by revelation, others falling into silence, rigid and unresponsive. Some claimed visions. Others spoke of feeling a power descend around them as a tangible, almost physical presence.

And it was here, amidst the spectacle of the Mow Cop gathering, that word was mentioned of a man living in a forest in Cheshire who could apparently summon such incredibly spirited reactions in his own followers, that it had to be seen to be believed. This man, people said, possessed genuine magical powers. Hugh Bourne and William Clowes made it their business to meet the figure in question as soon as they could, and duly made their way to Cheshire in search of an audience with ‘the old man of the forest’.

The Magic Methodists

Delamere Forest was not, in the early nineteenth century, the managed landscape it is today. It was a place of scattered settlements, rough clearings, and, in local lore, long-standing associations with the uncanny. It was here, in the 1790s, that a man named James Crawfoot came to create his own personal brand of Methodist practice amidst the greenery of the woodlands.

Born in 1758 near Tarvin, Cheshire, Crawfoot had been a farm labourer by trade and a Methodist by conviction. His own personal conversion to Methodism had come in 1783, courtesy of a spiritual experience that happened, he noted, in the early hours of the 7th of January that year; early Methodists often noted the exact date of such events. So inspired was he after this conversion experience that it led him to immediately unite himself with, what he called, the ‘despised’ Methodists of the Chester preaching circuit.

His second moment of transformation came when he was in the crowd at Chester in 1790, on the occasion of the last visit to the city by John Wesley himself. Now a preacher of several years’ standing, it was Wesley’s closing advice for local preachers such as Crawfoot that would inspire him to fully embrace his own bespoke methodology of worship thereafter, with Wesley stating;

‘Fellow labourers, wherever there is an open door enter it and preach the Gospel, if it be two or three under a hedge or a tree - preach the Gospel.’

By 1793, Crawfoot had established a smallholding at Bryn in Delamere Forest, and there began his personal brand of Methodism. Soon, a new local society of Methodists had gathered around him, inspiring the construction of a new chapel that would become part of the Northwich preaching circuit. But it was the monthly, Saturday evening services at his home, billed as being ‘for the promotion of spiritual life’, that illuminated his name across the county and over into Staffordshire. Attendees of the services became known as the ‘Forest Methodists’, but due to local rumours of the events witnessed there, they would also gain another name; the ‘Magic Methodists’. And with good reason.

It was a common occurrence for persons present to pass into a state of trance, whilst others reported wild visions. Some fell into states of apparent insensibility, only to rise with accounts of encounters far beyond ordinary perception. Many Church officials dismissed the group as deluded enthusiasts. Others went further, suggesting that such manifestations could not be divine at all; and the suspicion of darker influence was never far away, especially as talk circulated of the ‘drawing down’ of supernatural forces. 

Hugh Bourne and William Clowes had made their way to the Crawfoot camp for the first time in June 1807, just weeks after their first Mow Cop gathering. This character of the forest intrigued them, and the stories heard at Mow Cop, perhaps even fascinated them - but make no mistake, they were also there to check on the validity of his supposed magical reputation. A central belief of Crawfoot’s teachings, that in trance an individual could harness forces from heaven, that could, in turn, wield an influence in the daily life of the individual, was - even in the early 1800s - a dangerously esoteric claim. Less than a hundred years earlier, that kind of talk would have been equated with witchcraft.

However, on arrival at the forest camp, it didn’t take long for the visitors to become convinced of Crawfoot’s holy-man credentials. Such was the power of the experience that, far from being a moment that disturbed them, they took the events witnessed there as confirmation of Crawfoot’s ability to direct divine power. Bourne described the meeting as thus;

‘When we got to the meeting there were a number in the house, and a tall man sat in a two-armed chair preaching, as I thought, and it seemed an idle way. But, after I had sat down and hearkened, I thought he spoke good things. After a time, some spoke of beginning the meeting. It then appeared that the old man was only occupying or redeeming the time, and this I thought was excellent.’

‘The old man read a few passages of Scripture, and a brisk, short prayer meeting commenced. Ere long a female appeared to struggle, as if in distress, and I wondered why the friends did not pray with her. But on turning my head again, I saw two women placing her on a chair, and I thought “This is the vision or trance work”. She seemed to be fainting away. After a time Mrs. Elizabeth Prescott, a farmer’s wife, from near Great Budworth, spoke earnestly, and I rested, but was not edified. When Mrs. Prescott had closed, the meeting went on as before.’

‘After a time, Nancy Foden, the woman on the chair, began to speak, and to praise God. She went on this way for some time, and then came out of her vision state, and several women shook hands with her. I went among them to make inquiries, and one woman said, “These things strengthen our faith,” and this was all the information I could get of them.’‘

William Clowes was also in attendance, and he too gave his own account;

'On our arrival at the house where the meeting was held, we found ourselves just in time. It began always about seven o’clock on a Saturday evening. The house was situated in a very lonely part of the forest, but vast numbers of people attended. The old man began the service by reading some passages out of the Holy Scripture, then singing and prayer followed. The old man invited any to speak on the things of God that felt liberty.’

‘A respectable farmer’s wife then arose, and gave an exhortation, accompanied with a powerful influence from on high. It was truly good to be there; my soul felt it to be so. The meeting was thus carried on with prayer and exhortation until about twelve o’clock, and then it concluded. Some of the people before they departed took a little tea, and my friend and I departed also about two o’clock in the morning. I was greatly satisfied and benefited by my visit to this meeting. The next day I heard the old man preach in the open air, and afterward had a private conversation with him, the result of which was a more fixed and determined resolution to seek a knowledge of the deep things of God.’

That same year, both Crawfoot and Hugh Bourne found themselves being formally expelled from the Wesleyan Church. Bourne in relation to his Mow Cop camp meetings, and Crawfoot due to having willingly preached to Quakers in Warrington. And it was at Crawfoot’s meeting regarding his defence, that he coined the term that would formally brand this new movement of like-minded souls in Cheshire and Staffordshire. When rebutting the Wesleyan accusations regarding his activities in Warrington, Crawfoot forthrightly responded; 'If you have deviated from the old usages, I have not. I still remain a Primitive Methodist.’

Crawfoot’s home in the forest would become something of a religious college for Bourne and Clowes, where, they would later comment, they had been taught ‘the mystery and importance of faith, of the method of opening heaven, and bringing down an influence that caused believers to thirst for more purity of heart and sinners to grieve for their sins, of the necessity of watchfulness and the constant exercise of faith.’

The old man of the forest, it seems, had found his tribe. Or rather, they had found him. Now in his mid-50s, six feet tall and incredibly charismatic, Crawfoot was the star figure of the movement’s breakthrough years, and soon became its first paid preacher. Tasked with travelling across Cheshire, Lancashire, and Staffordshire for 10 shillings a week, speaking from house to house, and at camp meetings and gatherings, he was soon viewed as a genuine rustic mystic.

His name became known further afield too, and it was during one of these long-distance trips that Bourne witnessed the rumoured biblical healing powers of Crawfoot first-hand. When, in London, he appeared to heal a woman who had been run over by a carriage in the street, Bourne would call the event, ‘an astonishing miracle.’

But his rise wouldn’t last. A rift between Bourne and Crawfoot had developed following Crawfoot’s marriage to a mutual love interest, whilst Bourne’s move towards standardising the circuit of the movement, and placing an emphasis on the administrative responsibility that went with it, jarred with Crawfoot’s natural disposition. That in this new structure, Crawfoot, as a preacher, would be subordinate to Bourne as head of the movement, no doubt also played its part in the situation.

Come 1813, just six years after his joining, Crawfoot formally withdrew from the Primitive movement.

Returning to his forest camp, Crawfoot once more began to hold his services; however, just a year later, tragedy struck when his entire camp burned to the ground in a mysterious fire. Naturally, little is known of his later life after the fire and his retreat from public life; however, it was reported that when he died, at 81 years of age in 1839, it was as he was standing in the open air of a Cheshire field, exclaiming words of 'Glory! Glory!’ as he stared into the open sky above him. He was buried in Tarvin church, his headstone relaying simply that he was a ‘Minister of the Gospel’.

A Place in Time

The Primitive movement that had been so galvanised by Crawfoot’s force of character and apparent uncanny powers of communion, would be absorbed, in 1932, along with the Wesleyan Church, into the unified Methodist Church of Great Britain. Today, I suspect most reading this will be familiar with the Methodist Church in some form, even if it’s just the name above the door of a local urban chapel.

The Delamere Methodists’ image as some kind of magical Christian cult, communing with the spirit world amidst the forest, is naturally, explicitly romantic - yet it perhaps has more merit than we can really perceive from our vantage point in the present day. The reputation that Crawfoot and his followers earned locally was always going to veer into suspicious, supernatural territory. This is somewhat understandable; quite apart from any detail on what was actually taking place at his forest homestead, the very idea of it is enough to alight the imagination. This must have been especially true in an age where the superstitions and old folk beliefs of the past were still very much a topic of conversation in rural Cheshire.

Gossip, too, is always a great engine of speculation. It’s interesting that the talk of Crawfoot and his powers, in the folk-tradition, is of trances and possession, whilst the actual reportage of the events by those who were there, is much more restrained. That said, there’s no doubt as to the genuine perception of Crawfoot being able to harness some kind of spiritual power. A common explanation in Church circles, to this day, regarding the end of the Magical Methodists’ role in Primitive Methodism as a whole, is that things changed once Hugh Bourne was able to demonstrate that the power of God could be experienced without the need for such ‘spectacular gifts’.

Crawfoot was an impressive figure amidst the people of his time and undoubtedly possessed certain uncanny charms, even if they were ultimately based on the power of his charisma and not quite so much, his personal interface with the divine. Perhaps the most impressive thing about him, is that the history doesn’t tell us of a schemer or charlatan in any form. Irrespective of what we each personally believe - or absolutely do not believe - when it comes to the concepts of religion or the supernatural, that Crawfoot has been remembered completely free from the scent of any ‘long-con’ is genuinely striking when we’re talking about the history of rustic mystics.

Writing about religion is always a delicate task, particularly where layers of superstition and storytelling have gathered over time. The origins of Primitive Methodism offer a rich seam of local lore and legend, filled with imagery that readily captures the imagination. Yet much of this perceived colour and intensity owes less to the movement itself than to the cultural landscape into which it emerged. In retrospect, it was primarily due to the persistence of centuries-old folk beliefs, still active in the earliest part of the nineteenth century, that gave Primitive Methodism its vivid, almost otherworldly character.

Perhaps just 25 years later, the general belief in supernatural enchantment throughout the common folk of the region, that had swathed the movement's early days so heavily, would have already become suitably diminished beneath the wheels of industry, to the point of making such thinking far less prevalent. As it was, at that specific point in time, the everyday folk stories of the 1700s - the witches, house goblins and all that went with them - were still firmly planted in the minds of most locals, throughout what was still, very much, a rural landscape. 

From a more speculative angle, we should note that - as both written history and field archaeology have come to tell us - supernaturally-tinted worship experiences, in communal outdoor settings, have been something of a default setting for us humans for a very long time indeed. Perhaps the expression of super-charged emotions that those early followers felt, be it from the elevated vista of Mow Cop or beneath the green canopy of Delamere Forest, was actually much more of a natural experience than we can understand today, two hundred years on from the wholesale cultural changes brought to us by the Industrial Revolution.

I was actually baptised in a Methodist church myself, although I grew up knowing next to nothing about Methodism. I don’t think my parents really thought I needed saving from sin, but I do know that they liked a good session in the local pub, which I suspect is both the beginning and the end of the story when looking for reasons for my own baptism in an otherwise church-free family! 

Mind you, thinking about it now, my father was always very keen to take me walking at Mow Cop.

Eli Lewis-Lycett 2026

Sources and Further Reading

Regarding early Methodist and Primitive Methodist history;

  • Kendall, H. B. The Origin and History of the Primitive Methodist Church. London: Dalton, 1907.
  • Petty, John. The History of the Primitive Methodist Connexion. London: Thomas Church, 1860.
  • Townsend, W. J., Workman, H. B. and Eayrs, George. A New History of Methodism. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1909.

Regarding the Epworth Poltergeist;

  • Clarke, Adam. Memoirs of the Wesley Family. London: 1823.
  • Wesley, John. Accounts of the Epworth Disturbances (letters and journal entries, 1716–1717).

Regarding Methodism and Religious practice;

  • Hempton, David. Methodism: Empire of the Spirit. Yale University Press, 2005.
  • Rack, Henry D. Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism. Epworth Press, 1989.

Regarding associated folklore;

  • Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971.
  • Davies, Owen. Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History. London: Hambledon Continuum, 2003.

Regarding James Crawfoot and the Forest Methodists;

  • Reginald Nettel, Folk Elements in Nineteenth-Century Puritanism Folklore (Vol. 80, No. 4) Winter 1969.
  • Cooper, K, and Gregory, J. Signs, Wonders, Miracles: Representation of Divine Power in the Life of the Church. The Ecclesiastical History Society, 2005.
  • Milburn, Geoffrey. Primitive Methodism, Peterborough: Epworth Press, 2002.
  • Rack, Henry D. The Origin and History of the Primitive Methodist Church. Englesea Brook, 1996.

Special Thanks

 

Additional Material

Mow Cop today, the location of early camp meetings

Tarvin Church, as featured in Primitive Methodist Magazine in 1902

The strangest thing you're likely to see today in Delamere Forest is the Gruffalo walking trail!