The church was built because of a dispute between the teachers of Burslem Sunday School, founded in 1787, where reading and writing was taught to children, and the trustees of the
Wesleyan Chapel, at Swan Bank in Burslem, who disapproved of the teaching of non-religious knowledge on a Sunday. In May 1836 the teachers were locked out of the school. They formed themselves as "The Methodist Society", and continued their work in a pottery warehouse, and later in a wooden building which they erected in Moorland Road in Burslem. A permanent church was built in 1837. It was a three-storey brick building, with a stone portico raised above street level, leading to an entrance on the first floor where there was a chapel. The Sunday School rooms were in the floor below. There were 1354 scholars recorded in 1843. Services were conducted at first by the society's preachers; in 1848 the society joined the
Wesleyan Methodist Association, whose ministers conducted the services. In 1878 the chapel seated 700. It closed as a place of worship in 1977. It was damaged by fire in 1983, and in 1987 the building was demolished, except for the
portico. This consists of eight
Doric columns standing above street level, with steps leading to them. The columns support an
entablature, where in the centre "Burslem Sunday School" is inscribed. ==References==