Wesley’s Chapel (originally City Road Chapel) is a Methodist church in the St. Luke’s neighborhood in the southern part of the London borough of Islington. It was built in 1778 under the direction of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement. The complex serves as a place of worship and a tourist attraction and includes the Museum of Methodism in the crypt as well as John Wesley’s House next to the chapel. The chapel is also known as the “mother church of worldwide Methodism.”
In front of Wesley’s House is a small medicinal herb garden where herbs mentioned in Wesley’s book *The Primitive Physic* grow. The book describes in detail how ordinary people could heal themselves with natural remedies since they could not afford a doctor.
Wesley died on March 2, 1791. His grave is located in the garden behind the chapel, next to the graves of six of his preachers, his sister Martha Hall, and his physician and biographer, Dr. John Whitehead. In 1980, a law was passed authorizing the use of the Wesley’s Chapel cemetery on City Road in the London borough of Islington for other purposes, thereby permitting the removal of remains, headstones, and burial vaults to make way for the construction of the office building behind the chapel.
A monument to Wesley’s mother, Susanna, stands directly behind the gate to the front courtyard. At the entrance to the forecourt stands a bronze statue of Wesley bearing the inscription “The world is my parish.”
