A CHAPEL aims to put itself on the map with a packed programme of events to mark a 200th anniversary.

Tucked away in the countryside on the South Cheshire-Staffordshire border, Englesea Brook Chapel and Museum tells the tale of Primitive Methodism.

Officials would like to spread the word further - and this year they have the opportunity.

The Rev Stephen Hatcher said: 'On May 31, 1807, an open-air meeting called a 'camp meeting' was held at Mow Cop for 14 hours.

'More than 2,000 people attended this spiritual awakening. Mow Cop's visible and public expression of religious revival soon became a movement known as the 'Ranters', or more politely 'Primitive Methodism'.

'At times, the sound of people at prayer travelled up to a mile-and-a-half.

'In a world where people were hungry and life was 'nasty, brutish and short', they cried to God.

'The amazing thing is that from this noise and confusion it was not a weird sect but orthodox Christianity that emerged.

'It proved a powerful factor for good in the lives of many in 19th Century England.'

In 1828, the Ranters built Englesea Brook Chapel when William Salmon, a farmer, gave a corner of his garden.

In the style of a traditional cottage, it cost £113.

Its bare walls would be covered in banners and music played on a tuning fork - fiddles were considered improper and associated with worldly pastimes.

Over the Christmas holidays, young visitors have been making banners for the bicentenary.

April events include a Bring Out The Banners display at Mow Cop Methodist Church on April 1 and a Study Day at Engle-sea Brook on April 14 with Professor David Bebbington, of the University of Stirling, and Professor Robert Colls, University of Leicester.

May 26 sees a Celebration of Methodist Praise at the Queen's Theatre, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, while on May 27, there will be an open air celebration at Mow Cop.