16. Old Methodist School

Prominent in red brick with many windows and a multi-gabled roof with distinctive top  turret, this old school was opened in December 1905 by Viscount Ingestre, 23-year-old son of the Earl of Shrewsbury, as a much-needed replacement for the 1838 Free School for boys, to admit both boys and girls - as clearly indicated by 'Boys' and 'Girls' chiselled in stone above their respective entrances. Although planned to be replaced by the opening of Hob Hill School in 1971, it remained in use for another 13 years as an infants' annexe. The school building is being converted into apartments.

17. The Methodist Church

Methodism came to Brereton when Thomas Gething, colliery manager of Thomas Birch's mining partnership, registered his house for Methodist meetings in 1806.
Three years later a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was built in the village on land
later purchased by trustees for a nominal 5 shillings from Thomas Birch. His sister Elizabeth Birch, with her money and influence, helped things along. So Brereton
had a Methodist church 28 years before St. Michael's Church was built over the road.

The present Methodist church was built to seat 180 at a cost of about £400 in 1872, although it still incorporates a remnant of the earlier building towards the rear. Of dark red brick, with stone dressings and numerous buttresses at front and sides giving relief, its main architectural interest lies in the symmetrical frontage with its upper triple window in an arched recess above the central entrance with a buttress
at each side that rises to a substantial stone-pointed finial above the gabled roofline. Windows are pointed-top gothic-style with stone surrounds and leaded diamond plain glass.

A memorial tablet to Thomas Gething and his wife is inside the church, and Elizabeth Birch is buried in the small walled graveyard at the back where her memorial says she died in 1842, aged 69. Another inside memorial is to Mr. George Vickers who single-handedly taught at the Free School for almost 40 years. The pair of houses next door, with the front stone marked 'Wesley Cottages 1895', was owned by the Chapel trustees until the 1980s.

18. The Old Free School

With a frontage that commands attention for its decorative brickwork,
interesting roof line, and prominent date stone, the old Methodist Free
School has a brass plate inside explaining that it was built by Elizabeth
Birch in 1838 for the education of 40 boys of poor parents living within
three miles of Brereton. In the same year she endowed the school with
£1,500 to provide an income for its maintenance and to pay the master
who was to be a member of the Wesleyan Methodist Society, but lessons
were to be “free from sectarian tendency”. The school was extended in
the 1860s at a cost of about £110 raised by voluntary subscriptions, but
it closed when replaced by the nearby Methodist School in 1905. After
various uses, it now serves as a Sunday school and meeting room. It
was  extensively refurbished and extended at the rear to provide modern
facilities in 1991.