Defoe Chapel, 19,Tooting High Street
Built in 1776 for a congregation established in 1688, two storey pedimented classical front’ (Pevsner) on the grounds of a previous wooden church where Dissenters met in secret to escape persecution. Local folklore suggests Daniel Defoe was amongst them and the chapel named after him continued as a place of worship for Non-Conformists until 1902 when it was sold to the Primitive Methodists. In 1911 it was sold for commercial use. Before that time, c1910 Alderman William Melluhish, undertaker and stonemason oversaw the removal of burials within the chapel building and re-interment of remains to a Streatham cemetery. In 2014 Tooting History Group members united with the congregation of the United Reform Church,Tooting to resist alteration to the front elevation and development at the rear of the building. Plans to remodel the façade were withdrawn and in 2015, during works to extend the retail premises, human remains were unearthed in the cemetery grounds and re-interred on the site at two ceremonies conducted by Reverend Helen Matthews of the URC.
Tooting History Group 
[…] Whilst developing the site the architects had been hampered by surrounding properties which divided the area. Nevertheless it was agreed that an impressive market had been constructed out of the available land. The disused burial site behind what had once been the Defoe/Congregational Chapel at 19 High Street may well have caused problems. A 1930 plan of the market shows the burial ground shaded in mauve to the rear of what by then had become shops. In 2014 campaigners won a decisive victory against an application to develop the site. Plans to remodel the façade were withdrawn and in 2015, during works to extend the retail premises, human remains were unearthed in the cemetery grounds and re-interred elsewhere on the site. https://tootinghistory.org.uk/2017/08/01/defoe-chapel-tooting-high-street/ […]
LikeLike
You can read an account of the ceremony to re-inter the bones discovered during recent building works here
https://tootingurc.wordpress.com/2015/09/18/bones/
LikeLike