WHEN the Rev Olney Davies laid the foundation stone for the Bethesda Baptist Church in Trowbridge, he would have been delighted to think the church would still be thriving 75 years on.

The ceremony, pictured above, took place in March 1931. Now the church, on the corner of Newtown and Gloucester Road, is celebrating its 75th anniversary, with a congregation of between 80-90 led by Minister Rees James.

The church, which cost £3,700 to build, succeeded the old Bethesda Church which began life in 1821, the faade of which stills stands in The Shires shopping centre. Fred Hardiman, who a member of the church on both sites, kept a history of the church until his death last November at the age of 97.

Now his daughter Fay Edgerton and son John Hardiman are looking after his detailed records. Fay said: "My father recently died and my brother and I went through all his old stuff and found these photographs, along with lots of other things to do with the church. My father wrote a history of the church which is all typed up on disk but was never published. I married there and was baptised there too."

The second photograph, above right, shows past and present Sunday School scholars outside the church in June 1935, during the Silver Jubilee celebrations of King George V.

At that time as well as the Sunday congregation and Sunday school there were Bible classes and a church football team.

The church was founded in 1821 by a group who migrated from the Back Street Baptist Chapel. In 1822 they bought a site in The Courts, later Court Street and now in The Shires shopping centre, and erected a chapel, which was opened in 1823. By 1829 the congregation was up to 400 and the church had to expand to include a Sunday schoolroom and later galleries.

By 1890 membership was 230 with 450 schoolchildren and a lending library.

The chapel was damaged by fire in 1930 and the congregation moved to their new home.

The old church was bought by the mill owner, Samuel Salter, and incorporated into their factory and offices, but the faade was kept as it was.

The new church was used as a billeting station for soldiers during the Second World War, and in the 1950s was used as overflow for Newtown Junior School. Today the original pews have been taken out and replaced with chairs to allow for more flexible forms of worship, and there are regular communion services, youth and children's groups and coffee mornings.