According to the website Open Durham, the church was built for a congregation organized in the 1880s as the Commonwealth Methodist Episcopal Church, after the nearby Commonwealth Cotton Manufacturing Company. In the 1904 the congregation changed its name to Branson Methodist Church, after a director at the nearby Durham Cotton Manufacturing Company and Pearl Cotton Mills. It was renamed Asbury Temple later in the 20^th century. The building epitomizes Carlton’s church designs. See http://www.opendurham.org/buildings/commonwealth-branson-asbury-temple-united-methodist.