A Methodist chapel opened in Oadby on 13th May 1838 . On the opening day it was full to overflowing and it seated 160 people. The population of Oadby at the time was about 1200. The chapel belonged to the Wesleyan Methodist Association (a small splinter group of the Methodist Church ) and was in the Leicester circuit.

Only 12 years later a further chapel was opened in Leicester Road where Marks and Spencer now stands but we don't know why the first one closed. This new one was on two floors with the chapel upstairs and the schoolrooms below on the ground floor.

The majority of the members at the time were framework knitters, worked on a farm or were in the shoe trade. Most had lived all their lives in Oadby. The membership was at around the 30 - 40 mark when this chapel opened but it then climbed steadily until there were 86 full members by 1895.

Local preachers led Sunday services and the ordained minister (from Hill Street church in Leicester ) visited only on a Tuesday for the 7 o'clock service. By this time the smaller branches of Methodism, including the Wesleyan Methodist Association had combined to become the United Methodist Free Church, later to change again in 1907 to the United Methodist Church.

By 1908 a site for a new church building had been purchased at the corner of Sandhurst Street but events on the larger stage overtook the village. Unemployment was rife and in the space of a couple of years 1910-11 no fewer that 35 members emigrated with their families to Canada, the United States and New Zealand.

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