For many organisations, the South West peninsula down to Penzance presents an administrative problem because of the great distances and relatively small population. Methodism has tried various arrangements for its Districts and after the Methodist Union in 1932 it settled down with Cornwall, Plymouth and Exeter.

With the coming of separated Chairmen larger Districts were needed to support them and in 1957 the Plymouth District was divided between the other two to form the modern Cornwall and Plymouth and Exeter Districts. Since then two circuits in East Cornwall have been transferred to the Cornwall District. Still today, three circuits in the Plymouth and Exeter District have chapels in Cornwall and one circuit in the Cornwall District has a few chapels in Devon!

Looking back further, John Wesley was a frequent visitor to our District but generally on his way to and from Cornwall. Following Wesley's death, for much of the nineteenth century there were five separate national Methodist denominations, including the strong and widespread Wesleyans. Nationally the smallest of the five were the Bible Christians but locally they were second only to the Wesleyans and in North West Devon they had a large area to themselves.

The Bible Christians were founded in North West Devon and North East Cornwall in 1815 and their heartland was always Cornwall, Devon and West Somerset. The Shebbear and Ringsash circuits still contain only churches in the Bible Christian tradition. Both Shebbear and Edgehill Methodist Schools were founded by the Bible Christians.

The other three Methodist denominations did have chapels in our District but were relatively weak compared to their situation elsewhere. The Primitive Methodists had circuits along the coast, Exmouth, Teignmouth and Dawlish, Dartmouth, and Plymouth.

The Free Methodists had mostly small circuits in Bridgwater, Exeter, Tavistock, Devonport, Plymouth and Stratton and Bude. The New Connexion had a sole chapel in Torquay. The chapels of the last three denominations have almost all been closed. Our sole Moravian church was in Devonport and closed in 1916.