Having previously written about the Shrine of Our Lady of Willesden and its connection with Sir Thomas More and his family, I was very happy recently to have the opportunity to visit Chelsea (where More lived at the end of his life) to play for a Sunday mass at the church which – since his canonisation in 1935 – bears More’s name.
Location of the church of Our Most Holy Redeemer & St Thomas More, Chelsea, London (UK).
Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer and St Thomas More Catholic Church. [Source: – geograph.org.uk]
Location of the church of Our Most Holy Redeemer & St Thomas More, Chelsea, London (UK).
The site in Upper Cheyne Walk was formerly occupied by Orange House, one of a terrace of eleven houses (c.1710), of which the other ten remain. Orange House was the location (1876–82) of workshops belonging to the well-known ‘Arts and Crafts’ potter and ceramic artist William de Morgan (1839–1917). The present building was consecrated in 1905, built to the Renaissance-style design of Edward Goldie (1856–1921).
Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer & St Thomas More, Chelsea, London (UK). [Source: geograph.org.uk]
Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer & St Thomas More, Chelsea, London (UK). [Source: geograph.org.uk]
Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer & St Thomas More, Chelsea, London (UK). [Source: taking-stock.org.uk]
G. M. Holdich (1816-96) [Source: ohta.org.au]At the west end of the church is an organ gallery and pipe organ that replaces an earlier instrument destroyed by aerial bombing during the Second World War. The present instrument was made by G. M. Holditch (1816–96) for a church in High Wycombe. It was described there as having an “elegant case of ebonised wood, generously gilded on moulding and ornamentation.” (NPOR). Since then that case has largely been lost and the instrument been much adapted by unknown hands. Although now rather unattractive in appearance this instrument is nonetheless well suited to congregational accompaniment.
Builder’s plate on the west-gallery pipe organ; church of Our Most Holy Redeemer & St Thomas More, Chelsea, London (UK)
Pipe-work of the west-gallery pipe organ; church of Our Most Holy Redeemer & St Thomas More, Chelsea, London (UK)
Console and pipe-work of the west-gallery pipe organ; church of Our Most Holy Redeemer & St Thomas More, Chelsea, London (UK)
Console of the west-gallery pipe organ; church of Our Most Holy Redeemer & St Thomas More, Chelsea, London (UK)
West gallery and pipe organ; church of Our Most Holy Redeemer & St Thomas More, Chelsea, London (UK)
References
‘Chelsea‘. A History of the County of Middlesex, Volume 12 (British History Online). Online resource accessed 28 November 2019
‘Edward Goldie‘, Wikipedia. Online resource, accessed 28 November 2019
St Paul the Apostle, Station Road, Wood Green, London N22 7SY
The north-London catholic church of St Paul the Apostle in Wood Green has perhaps the least kerb-appeal of any church I know. The forbidding (unforgiving) single-storey facade of plain, repeating concrete arches facing onto a busy traffic route gives the building a rather Moorish appearance, there being no obviously Christian signifiers except for a tiny cross high a-top a towering narrow pylon. Indeed I supsect many people driving past might even mistake the place for a mosque in this typically multi-cultural London borough.
The location of the church of St Paul the Apostle, Wood Green, London N22.
The church of St Paul the Apostle (1971), Wood Green, London N22. Source: Wikimedia Commons
The church of St Paul the Apostle (1971), Wood Green, London N22. Source: Geograph
A Catholic presence was first established in Wood Green in 1884 with a new church in Romanesque-style (1904) designed by Edward Goldie (1856–1921). Alas, I can find no images of this building. In 1971 Goldie’s church was replaced by a new church with hall, school and presbytry attached, all designed by John Rochford and Partner of Sheffield.
Interior, the church of St Paul the Apostle, London N22. Source: ‘Photographs of London Churches’.
Interior, the church of St Paul the Apostle, London N22. Source: ‘Photographs of London Churches’.
Interior, the church of St Paul the Apostle, London N22. Source: ‘Photographs of London Churches’.
Interior, the church of St Paul the Apostle, London N22. Source: ‘Photographs of London Churches’.
Interior, the church of St Paul the Apostle, London N22. Source: ‘Photographs of London Churches’.
The shape of the church is a pentagon, with the sanctuary at the apex. The interior is plain, even austere, all of brick and concrete, lit from above by clerestory windows. Colour is priovided by a series of stained-glass windows, a number brought from the previous church. Most striking are the huge panels of modern stained-glass that almost completely fill the top half of the wall facing the altar. They were commisioned in 1982 from the Maltese artist Carmel Cauchi on the theme ‘Pilgrim Church’. The interior of the church is larger and loftier than one might have imagined before entering, seating over 600, and yet despite its scale it conjours a quiet and prayerful aura.
The Organ
Detail: the pipe organ by Monk & Gunther (1975) in the church of St Paul the Apostle, Wood Green, London N22.
Detail: the pipe organ by Monk & Gunther (1975) in the church of St Paul the Apostle, Wood Green, London N22. Source: Andrew Pink
Detail: the pipe organ by Monk & Gunther (1975) in the church of St Paul the Apostle, Wood Green, London N22. Source: Andrew Pink
Detail: the pipe organ by Monk & Gunther (1975) in the church of St Paul the Apostle, Wood Green, London N22. Source: Andrew Pink
Detail: the pipe organ by Monk & Gunther (1975) in the church of St Paul the Apostle, Wood Green, London N22. Source: Andrew Pink
Detail: the pipe organ by Monk & Gunther (1975) in the church of St Paul the Apostle, Wood Green, London N22. Source: Andrew Pink
Detail: the pipe organ by Monk & Gunther (1975) in the church of St Paul the Apostle, Wood Green, London N22. Source: Andrew Pink
The pipe organ was built (1975) by the now defunct local firm of Monk and Gunther. The pipework on the cantilevered gallery – with console at ground level – makes an impressive visual impact in the buidling. This is not matched by its tonal impact because of its poorly conceived ‘extension’ design, which provides little variety in terms of colour or power, being weak and barely sufficient for accompanying the liturgy in this bustling, well-attended church. Sadly, the instrument seems to have been well built and well maintained, with no signs of needing replacement any time soon.
References
The organ specification in National Pipe Organ Register, online resource accessed 10 October 2017
Parish website, online resource accessed 10 October 2017
‘Tottenham: Roman catholicism‘ in A History of the County of Middlesex Volume 5 (Victoria County History: London, 1976), online reource accessed 10 October 2017
‘Wood Green – St Paul the Apostle‘ in Taking Stock, Catholic churches of England and Wales, online resource accessed 10 October 2017
St Joan of Arc’s Church, 60 Highbury Park. London N5 2XH
St Joan of Arc church in Highbury, London (n.d.) from a parsih publication of 2013
The nave in the church of St Joan of Arc (c.2000), Highbury, London
The location of St Joan of Arc church in Highbury, London
The Catholic parish of St Joan of Arc in north London (UK) achieved a certain prominence during the 1990s when it was the local church of choice for the former British Labour Party leader and later Prime Minister Tony Blair and his family. However, the parish has two rather more interesting claims on posterity.
Firstly, ths buidling is the immediate succesor of the first Catholic church anywhere in the world dedicated to St Joan of Arc. From 1918 local Highbury Catholics had worshipped in the chapel of a convent of Discalced Carmelite nuns but increasing numbers of worshippers required the provision of a separate church.
The interior c.1950 of the first church of St Joan of Arc in Kelross Road, London N5
The main entrance c.1950 to first church of St Joan of Arc in Kelross Road, London N5
This new church was opened on 13 October 1920 just five monrths after Joan’s canonisation (16 May 1920). When the Carmelites left Highbury in 1953 the convent site was used for a new and much larger church designed by Stanley Kerr Bate (b.1906–?), which opened on 23 September 1962.
The church of St Joan of Arc church in Highbury, London; detail of west fron and tower, c.1990
Secondly, the new church tower was the first in England to be provided with a radioactive lightning rod. (Taking Stock). The idea behind this device – Early Streamer Emission theory – was that a small quantity of radioactive isotopes at the tip of the rod greatly increased the lightning capture area. The theory has since been discredited. Worriyingly, with such devices there is always a risk that the effects of weathering and poor maintenance allows radioactive material to be released in an uncontolled way into the environment. I have no idea if this dubious device is still in place on the tower at St Joan’s.
Builder’s plate on the organ in the church of St Joan of Arc, Highbury, London, 2017
Detail of the organ by J. W. Walker and Sons (1963) in the church of St Joan of Arc, Highbury, London, 2017
The console of the organ by J. W. Walker and Sons (1963) in the church of St Joan of Arc, Highbury, London, 2017.
Detail of the organ by J. W. Walker and Sons (1963) in the church of St Joan of Arc, Highbury, London, 2017
The piston setter of the organ by J. W. Walker and Sons (1963) in the church of St Joan of Arc, Highbury, London, 2017
Detail of the organ by J. W. Walker and Sons (1963) in the church of St Joan of Arc, Highbury, London, 2017
The console of the organ by J. W. Walker and Sons (1963) in the church of St Joan of Arc, Highbury, London, 2017
The choir gallery in the church of St Joan of arc, Highbury, London, 2017
The pedal division of the organ by J. W. Walker and Sons (1963) in the church of St Joan of Arc, Highbury, London, 2017
The very nice neo-baroque pipe organ (1963) is by J. W. Walker and Sons Ltd, and is divided either side of the front wall of a spacious choir gallery at the west end of the nave. The largest pedal pipes are in a separate case on the gallery.
Present-day Bow (pr. boh) is a densely populated area of inner London on the west bank of the River Lea just east of the City. From at least the early Middle Ages it was known as Stratford-at-Bow – ‘Bow’ apparently a reference to the elegance of its arched bridge – to distinguish it from Stratford Langthorne on the opposite bank of the River Lea. These days the two places are simply known as Bow and Stratford respectively.
Bow Bridge during demolition works in 1835
An early nineteenth-century map, showing Bow and the many arms of the adjacent River Lea.
Bow Road, looking east c.1793.
Church of Our Lady & St Catherine of Sienna (1870), Bow, London E3
As a result of Bow’s proximity not only to the River Lea and its ready supply of water power and water transport but also to the London docks the area has traditionally relied on industrial production and trade of goods: flour mills, slaughter houses, tanneries, dye factories, and – in the eighteenth century – fine porcelain. The Bow China Works was one of the earliest centres outside China successfully to produce porcelain-style goods and as a result was sometimes referred to as ‘New Canton’.
Bow porcelain teapot, c.1758
Watercolour, “taken from behind ye China House at Bow” by Jeffryes Hammett O’Neale (fl. c.1754-1768),
Figurine of a lady falconer (Bow Porcelain Factory c.1755)
Charles Booth’s Poverty Map of Bow (1888-9)
By the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth the area was a by-word for insalubriousness although the social reformer Charles Booth (1840-1916) typified the area’s population as covering a range of of living conditions from “Poor” to “Fairly comfortable”.
Gilbert Robert Blount (1819-76)
Bow’s Catholic church of Our Lady and St Catherine of Siena was designed by Gilbert Robert Blount (1819–76) and opened in 1870 to serve a newly created parish. This new parish was established by a community of Dominican nuns who had previously run (1865-7) the St Mary’s School and Orphanage in Walthamstow, not so far away in north-east London. The Dominicans left Bow in the 1920s (moving to Stone in Staffordshire, where they remain), and the Archdiocese of Westminster became directly responsible for running the parish and its schools.
In addition to the church, Blount’s architectural scheme included a convent connected to the church and school buildings. These buidlings remain to this day. Some are used as the presbytery, parish halls and social facilities while others are home to small and medium-sized enterprises.
Church of Our Lady and; St Catherine of Siena (1870), Bow, London E3 c.1900
Church of Our Lady and St Catherine of Siena (1870), Bow, London E3
Church of Our Lady and St Catherine of Siena (1870), Bow, London E3 c.2000
Church of Our Lady and; St Catherine of Siena (1870), Bow, London E3 c.2000
Church of Our Lady and; St Catherine of Siena (1870), Bow, London E3 c.2000
According to the National Pipe Organ Register, in 1911 the church possessed a pipe organ by the firm of Bishop and Sons. It must be assumed that this organ was destroyed along with the nave by enemy bombing in the Second World War. The nave was rebuilt after the war and the present west-gallery organ is reputed to have come from one of the chapels in Holloway Prison, north London, supplied by the London firm of Hill, Norman and Beard Ltd (HNB). Since there is no builder’s plate on the instrument it is unclear if HNB made the instrument or merely moved it.
Pedal board. Our Lady and St Catherine of Sienna Catholic church London E3, pipe organ by Hill, Norman and Beard.
Pipe-shade detail. Our Lady and St Catherine of Sienna Catholic church London E3, pipe organ by Hill, Norman and Beard.
Console.. Our Lady and St Catherine of Sienna Catholic church London E3, pipe organ by Hill, Norman and Beard.
Great-organ stops. Our Lady and St Catherine of Sienna Catholic church London E3, pipe organ by Hill, Norman and Beard.
Organ front. Our Lady and St Catherine of Sienna Catholic church London E3, pipe organ by Hill, Norman and Beard.
Swell- and pearl-organ stops. Our Lady and St Catherine of Sienna Catholic church London E3, pipe organ by Hill, Norman and Beard.
The organ is unassuming and gentle in tone, perhaps not best suited for supporting a sung liturgy even in this modest-sized church, but it is in very good playing condition with a light, responsive mechanical action.
The Augustinian Priory of St Monica, Hoxton Square, London N1
I recently had a chance to play the pipe-organ at the Augustinians’ priory in Hoxton Square, just north of the City of London. Who knew that the Augustinians continue a 150-year presence in Hoxton, or that the Hoxton Priory was the first Augustinian house to have been established in England since Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries?
Hoxton Square, London (UK), the north end of the eastern side, showing (l-r) the school, church and priory of St Monica, built 1864-66 for the Augustinians, by E. W. Pugin (1834-75).
Hoxton Square, London, (UK), looking towards the the north end of the eastern side, showing (l-r) the school, church and priory of St Monica, built 1864-66 for the Augustinians, by E. W. Pugin (1834-75).
Hoxton Square, street sign
Hoxton Square was built up by London merchants during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. By the time of the Augustinians’ arrival in the 1860s the area was – as Charles Booth’s ‘poverty maps’ (1889) indicate – a socially very mixed area with the comfortably off living side by side with the very poorest. At this time the area was largely given over to trade and manufacture, especially the furniture trade. It was also home to alms-houses and private mad-houses (lunatic asylums).
Charles Booth’s ‘Maps Descriptive of London Poverty, 1898-9’; the black marker indicates Hoxton Square. (Source: https://booth.lse.ac.uk/).
A legend, for Charles Booth’s ‘Maps Descriptive of London Poverty, 1898-9’; the black marker indicates Hoxton Square. (Source: https://booth.lse.ac.uk/).
Detail of Charles Booth’s ‘Maps Descriptive of London Poverty, 1898-9’; the black marker indicates Hoxton Square. (Source: https://booth.lse.ac.uk/). The Priory church, house and school, occupies the northern end of the eastern side of the square.
Just thirteen years later, Charles Booth in his Life and Labour of the People in London (1902) gave a bleak assessment of the population:
The character of the whole locality is working-class. Poverty is everywhere, with a considerable admixture of the very poor and vicious … Large numbers have been and are still being displaced by the encroachment of warehouses and factories … Hoxton is known for its costers and Curtain criminals, for its furniture trade … No servants are kept except in the main Road shopping streets and in a few remaining middle class squares in the west.
This area is now seeing much better days, and is best-known for its trend-setting creative industries and galleries, popularly satirised of late for its population of so-called ‘hipsters’, or should that now be ‘yuccies’?
Hipsters or yuccies?
Hipsters or yuccies?
Hipsters or yuccies?
The Augustinians’ priory buildings (1864-66) – church, priory house and school – were designed by E. W. Pugin (1834-75). The church is dedicated to St Monica, the mother of the Order’s patron, St Augustine of Hippo (354-430); the town of Hippo is now present-day Annaba in Algeria. The elaborate decoration of the church’s chancel has recently been restored and is splendid.
St Monica’s Priory, Hoxton, London (UK); nave, looking east, before the renovation of the chancel decorations.
St Monica’s Priory, Hoxton, London (UK); aisle, looking west.
St Monica’s Priory, Hoxton, London (UK); part of the restored decoration of the chancel
St Monica’s Priory, Hoxton, London (UK); part of the restored decoration of the chancel
St Monica’s Priory, Hoxton, London (UK); original wall decoration.
The pipe-organ (1866) is on a gallery at the west end of the church made by the London firm of Bishop and Sons, probably for this church. The handsome case however, belies an incomplete and dull instrument. My guess is that it arrived incomplete for want of funds and was never finished.
The pipe organ (1866) in St Monica’s Priory, Hoxton, London (UK)
The pipe organ (1866) in St Monica’s Priory, Hoxton, London (UK); lower left-hand stop jamb
The pipe organ (1866) in St Monica’s Priory, Hoxton, London (UK); cooer left-hand stop jamb
The pipe organ (1866) in St Monica’s Priory, Hoxton, London (UK)
The pipe organ (1866) in St Monica’s Priory, Hoxton, London (UK)
The pipe organ (1866) in St Monica’s Priory, Hoxton, London (UK); right-hand stop jamb
The pipe organ (1866) in St Monica’s Priory, Hoxton, London (UK); pedal board
Nowadays it is in a sorry condition and scarcely passes muster. The poor-sounding pipework and the worn-out mechanics are probably not special enough to warrant restoration, but even if restored this pipe-organ would not be particularly useful. I suspect that the case and visible pipework will always have to remain, being part of the historic fabric. Meanwhile, we can only hope for a generous benefaction finally to allow the commissioning of a new instrument for the old case that is worthy of the location and its traditions.
St Joseph’s Church, Lamb’s Buildings, London EC1Y 8LE
The small London throughfare known as Lamb’s Buildings is named after a tenement built there about 1770 by a local businessman called Thomas Lamb (1752-1813), a cloth dyer and a manufacturer of buckram – a fabric of coarse linen stiffened with gum used both by tailors and bookbinders. The buildings currently at the junction of Lamb’s Buildings and Errol Street (shown below) also date from about 1770 but no direct connection with Lamb is known.
The location c.1880s of St Joseph’s Catholic Church, Lamb’s Buildings, London EC1, from William Booth’s ‘Life and Labour of the People in London’: http://booth.lse.ac.uk
The location of St Joseph’s Catholic Church, Lamb’s Buildings, London EC1 c.2000
The location of St Joseph’s Catholic Church, Lamb’s Buildings, London EC1 c.2000
Mr Lamb’s business was just around the corner in Sword Bearer Alley, that name perhaps deriving from the nearby premises of the Honourable Artillery Company (est. 1537). By the 1790s Sword Bearer Alley had become known as Lamb’s Passage (Sun Insurance Records CLC/B/192/F/001/MS11936/400/639811), and so it is today. The brewer Samuel Whitbread (1720-96) lived here for a while in the mid 1700s while setting up his famous brewery in the adjacent Chiswell Street.
‘Loading the Drays at Whitbread Brewery, Chiswell Street, London’ (1793) by George Garrard (1760–1826)
The last dray-horses leave the Whitbread brewery Chiswell Street, London EC1 in 1991
Even in the late nineteenth centry the area was inhabited mainly by the well-to-do middle classes, which is clearly shown on Charles Booth’s “poverty map” (above), indicated by the red blocks.
Lamb’s Buildings, London EC1: St Joseph’s School (1901), and late eighteenth-century building at the junction with Errol Street. (Google Streetview)
In 1815 a plot of land on Lamb’s Buildings was bought by the Associated Catholic Charities to establish an orphanage and schools. A school chapel dedicated to St Joseph was listed in the Catholic Directory from 1850, doubling as a public place of worship. The present St Joseph’s School building was erected in 1901 with a chapel in the basement.
The school closed in 1977.
While the upper floors of the school building are now home to the offices of the Catholic Herald newspaper, the basement chapel is now known as St Joseph’s Church. It is accessed from Lamb’s Buildings via a rather splendid gateway framed by Doric pilasters with the Papal tiara in the pediment. The church contains two large, stained-glass windows from the old St Mary Moorfields church, and some distinctive neo-coptic icons by Stéphane René (b.1954)
Lamb’s Buildings, London, EC1; gateway to St Joseph’s Church, c.2010
The interior of St Joseph’s Church, Lamb’s Buildings, London, EC1: the west end.
The interior of St Joseph’s Church, Lamb’s Buildings, London, EC1: the east end.
Stained glass window ‘The Agony in the Garden’ (maker unknown) in St Joseph’s Church, Lamb’s Buildings, London EC1; originally in the early nineteenth-century church of St Mary Moorfields.
At the west end of the church, against the south wall, sits an attractive one-manual organ. A small builders’ plate on the organ declares the instrument to be by the firm of Nicholson, but it gives no date.
The Nicholson pipe organ in St Joseph’s Church, Lamb’s Buildings, London EC1: builder’s plate
The Nicholson pipe organ in St Joseph’s Church, Lamb’s Buildings, London EC1: keyboard
The Nicholson pipe organ in St Joseph’s Church, Lamb’s Buildings, London EC1: pedal board
The Nicholson pipe organ in St Joseph’s Church, Lamb’s Buildings, London EC1: stop jamb, right
The Nicholson pipe organ in St Joseph’s Church, Lamb’s Buildings, London EC1: case
The Nicholson pipe organ in St Joseph’s Church, Lamb’s Buildings, London EC1: stop jamb, left
A chance conversation with the organologist Philip J. Wells, shortly after my visit, led him to make the following observations:
This looks to me like it might be a Nicholson & Co (Worcester) Ltd organ which was built in 1973 as an exhibition organ for the St Albans organ festival of that year. It had a Mahogany case with provision for one extra stop (it appears a Dulciana has been added) but I remember it for the 2ft conical flute and Quartane. It was for sale for £3,000 (plus vat if applicable) and was described as a one manual tracker action traditional English organ.
A correspondence with the administrator of the St Albans International Organ Festival has added some further detail:
I can tell you that a Nicholson organ was exhibited [in 1973]. It’s specification was : Gedeckt 8; Principal 4; Block Flute 2; Quartane 19.22; Compass C-f3; 66″ x 30″ x ?”.
Thus armed, I made contact with Nicholson and Company Limited and folk there were able to shed further light. Specifically, that following the organ’s appearance at St Albans in 1973 it eventually returned to the factory until c.1980 when it was supplied to the church of St Mary the Virgin, Warwick, during work on the organ there. After this it found another home at the church of St John the Baptist, Fekenham, near Redditch. It was then sold to a church ‘down south’ around 2001, presumably to St Joseph’s.
It would seem that some minor tonal alterations (stop-name changes) were made between 1973 and now, with the addition – at some point – of a pedal organ. The current specification is:
Manual : 54 notes C to F
– Dulciana 8′ : to tenor C, no bottom octave
– Stopped Bass 8′ : from botom C to tenor C, one octave only
– Stopped Flute 8′ : from tenor C, no bottom octave
– Principal 4′
– Mixture 2 ranks
– Conical Flute 2′ Pedal : 30 notes C to F
– [Bourdon] 16′ : separate rank; on/off controlled by right-hand pedal lever Coupler
– manual to pedal controlled by left-hand pedal lever Additional information – Mechanical action throughout, with equal temperament tuning; electric-powered wind supply
David Long (2011)‘Lamb’s Passage EC1’ in Hidden City: The Secret Alleys, Courts and Yards of London’s Square Mile by David Long (Stroud: The History Press)
At first glance the Catholic church of St Mellitus located on Tollington Park in north London would appear to be an unremarkable nineteenth-century example of a neo-classical Catholic church building, such as can be found throughout the Catholic world.
St Mellitus Catholic church – originally New Court Congregational Church (1871), Islington London (UK) by C. G. Searle (1816-81)
Basilica of the Assumption, Baltimore (USA) 1821, by British architect B. H. Latrobe (1764–1820)
St Mary Moorfields (1820), Finsbury Circus, London EC2 by John Newman (1786–1859). “Illustrated London, or a Series of Views in the British Metropolis and its Vicinity” by A. H. Payne (London : 1846-1847)
However looks can be deceiving since the Tollington Park building has only been a Catholic church since 1959.
The building dates from 1871 and was built for the New Court Congregational Church to the design of C. G. Searle (1816–81). The New Court congregation had fist met n 1662 in a building in Bridges Street, Covent Garden, London. In 1696 the congregation moved to a location in Drury Lane and again in 1707 to a location in New Court, Carey Street, Strand. Here they stayed until the 1860s when Carey Street and the area all around it was cleared to make way for the building of the Royal Courts of Justice. Thus the New Court congregation moved to its new building in Tollington Park where it stayed until selling up in the 1950s, due to dwindling numbers. The descendents of the New Court congregation continue to meet today in other premises in the same area under the banner of the Elim Pentecostal Church.
This dissenting-Protestant back-story explains the church building’s interior, which seems to embrace Catholic worship rather reluctantly, although the Catholic congregation here have a genuine affection for the place.
St Mellitus Catholic church – originally New Court Congregational Church (1871), Islington London (UK) by C. G. Searle (1816-81), looking east c.2015
St Mellitus Catholic church – originally New Court Congregational Church (1871), Islington London (UK) by C. G. Searle (1816-81), looking west c.2015
The most obvious changes in converting the building were made at the (liturgical) east end where an altar replaced the large preaching desk (pulpit), and the display pipes of the pipe-organ were replaced by a painted reredos depicting a neo-classical doorway with three windows above; the significance of this decoration is not clear. Sadly I can find no pictures of the interior of the building prior to 1959.
The rather fine and rather large three-manual pipe organ (1920) by the London firm of Alfred Hunter remains in situ, hidden – and rather muted – behind the reredos; its console is at the east end of the south gallery. The instrument was installed as a memorial to those of the New Court congregation who died in the First World War.
I had an opportunity to play the organ during Christmas and New Year 2015-16 when it was abundantly clear that the instrument was in a very poor state, short of wind and with much of it unusable and by March 2016 the organ had stopped working altogether. Undeterred, the parish has immediately set in motion imaginative plans for a restoration of Alfred Hunter’s ‘war memorial’ organ, with help from the UK National Lottery.
The Five Precious Wounds, Stonebridge, London NW10
It’s been quite a while since I played the Norman & Beard (1911) pipe-organ in the Duke’s Hall at the Royal Academy of Music, London; I was a post-graduate student there some thirty-six years ago.
1911: the stage of the Duke’s Hall in the Royal Academy of Music during the opening festivities.
1930s: the stage of the Duke’s Hall in the Royal Academy of Music,
So it was with a real sense of pleasure that this week I snapped up the chance to play this instrument once again, in its new home in the Catholic church of The Five Precious Wounds in Stonebridge, north-west London. As the pictures indicate, this is a rather fine Catholic building of 1968.
Five Previous Wounds Catholic Church, London NW10, UK: exterior north side
Five Previous Wounds Catholic Church, London NW10, UK: interior facing east. ground level
Five Previous Wounds Catholic Church, London NW10, UK: interior facing east. from the gallery
Five Previous Wounds Catholic Church, London NW10, UK: looking west towards the organ gallery.
The instrument was transplanted here in 1988, when the Royal Academy of Music acquired a new organ for the Duke’s Hall. In being moved the instrument has been only slightly altered by the addition of a couple of stops (see specifications, below) – and, I might add, some enitrely unnecessary electronic playing aids (gadgets!) that didn’t work for me – but all without compromising the organ’s structural or tonal integrity as originally conceived.
Five Previous Wounds Catholic Church, London NW10, UK: organ facade, facing south.
Five Previous Wounds Catholic Church, London NW10, UK: organ facade, facing north.
Five Previous Wounds Catholic Church, London NW10, UK: organ console, builder’s plate.
Five Previous Wounds Catholic Church, London NW10, UK: organ console, dedication plate.
Five Previous Wounds Catholic Church, London NW10, UK: organ console, stop jambs for Choir and Great.
Five Previous Wounds Catholic Church, London NW10, UK: organ console, stop jambs for Choir and Great.
Five Previous Wounds Catholic Church, London NW10, UK: organ console.
The acoustic of this well-maintained church is pleasantly reverberant and the organ sounds very good in its gallery location, speaking directly down into and along the high-ceilinged nave. Thus it is well placed and well designed not only to support the liturgy, congregational hymns and even plainsong, but also – as the opportunity demands – to raise the roof with some clever showing-off!
I could find no details of which company transplanted the organ or any details of the company that currently maintains the instrument.
Sacred Heart Church, Eden Grove, Holloway, London, N7
Sacred Heart Church, Eden Grove, Holloway, London, N7
Sacred Heart Church, Eden Grove, Holloway, London, N7
Sacred Heart Church, Eden Grove, Holloway, London, N7; parish school
On Friday I had the opportunity to play the pipe-organ at the Catholic church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Holloway, north London. The building is a nice example of seemingly little altered, nineteenth-century red-brick Catholic gothic, tucked away in the backstreets of Holloway. More …
At the time of the church’s building in 1869–70 and for much of the twentieth century Holloway has been a largely lower middle class neighbourhood of respectable office clerks and tradesmen, many being first and second generation immigrants from Ireland and eastern Europe. Of course, to literary types Holloway is well-known as the purlieu of the Grossmith brothers’ Mr Pooter. More ….
But these days the area is moving helter-skelter into the twenty-first century, with the replacement of old infrastructure and light industry by developments of upscale apartment blocks, high-tech start-up companies, business incubator hubs, the new Arsenal Football Club stadium, and the striking buildings of the London Metropolitan University. An air of youthful enterprise and increasing affluence abounds. This church community also appears to be in good shape judging by its most impressive-looking brand new parish primary school building opposite the church.
For some while I have hankered after playing the pipe organ in this church – an instrument by the firm of J. W. Walker and Sons (1961) – inspired by pictures I’d seen of its distinctive modern case. From the outward design I imagined a bright and direct sound as produced by the Walker instrument made three years later for the neighbouring Catholic church of Our Lady and St Joseph; discussed here. The reality of the Sacred Heart instrument was rather a disappointment, not least because of its much gentler than expected tone.
The instrument sits in the north aisle of the chancel, quite separate from the main body of the church, and is designed on the ‘extension‘ principle, using just five ranks of pipes to derive 30 stops. Furthermore at Sacred Heart church all the pipework is enclosed in a swell box except for the diapason rank, part of which is in the facade of the case. Such all-enclosed instruments are not uncommon in convent and monastery chapels.
The ‘extension’ organ is an idea that originated in cinema-organ technology and in days gone by it seemed to provide a satisfactory technical solution for squeezing more out of less, but it never really provided a satisfactory musical solution and these days is no longer in favour.
The Walker pipe-organ in the Sacred Heart church was installed when the church was undergoing a decluttering, all at considerable expense. However, the timing of the instrument’s arrival in 1961 could not have been worse because in October that year the Second Vatican Council (Vatican 2) began five years of deliberations that would eventually lead to radical changes in Catholic liturgical practice, spatially as well as theologically.
Thus, even though a substantial west gallery was installed in 1961, where Vatican 2 would later encourage the musicians to be located, the new organ was placed in its traditional pre-Vatican-2 place in the refurnished chancel’s north aisle, somewhat out of sight, along with some new and equally out-of-sight choir stalls. The new organ’s role was – with trained singers – to support and beautify the canon of the mass, rather than to unite all the people in song. This goes some way to explain the gentler-than-expected quality of the organ’s voicing and its out of the way location.
Some 60 years on, and now isolated in its corner of the building the instrument seems an anachronism, underpowered for accompanying post-Vatican-2’s all-inclusive Catholic worship, for which an amplified electric piano now has pride of place in front of the chancel steps.
In time perhaps, with Holloway’s fast pace of regeneration, the parish will share in enough of the area’s increasing affluence to make possible some consideration of a further re-ordering of the liturgical space to see the organ rebuilt and relocated – maybe to the west gallery where it will serve to best advantage – or even passed on to somewhere else and its fortunes revived.
Sacred Heart Church, Eden Grove, Holloway, London, N7; organ builder’s plate
Sacred Heart Church, Eden Grove, Holloway, London, N7
Sacred Heart Church, Eden Grove, Holloway, London, N7
Sacred Heart Church, Eden Grove, Holloway, London, N7
I recently found my way to the church of Our Lady and St Joseph located on the Balls Pond Road in north London. The road is said to have been named after a pond owned by a John Ball who in much earlier times ran the Salutation Tavern (aka the Boarded House), which provided facilities for bull baiting and – on its pond – duck hunting.
Balls Pond, north London, shown on Ordnance Survey First Series, Sheet 7 (1856)
The location of Our Lady & St. Joseph’s church, London N1 4AG.
The first church of Our Lady & St Joseph and school, London N1, late c19. Source: Taking Stock
The parish was established in 1855 by Fr William Lockhart of the Rosminian Order. The first parish church (1856-c.1960) was located at the corner of Culford Road and Tottenham Street, Hackney. This church was converted from a disused warehouse by W. W. Wardell (1823-99), with further adaptation by E. W. Pugin (1834–75) completed in 1860.
The current buidling was designed by William C Mangen (1884-?) and was opened in 1964.
The church of Our Lady & St. Joseph, Islington, N1. Source: parish website.
Church of Our Lady & St Joseph, London N1. Source: Evinson
Church of Our Lady & St Joseph, London N1. Source: Geograph
Church of Our Lady & St Joseph, London N1. Source: Geograph
Church of Our Lady & St Joseph, London N1. Source: Geograph
The pipe organ
The organ here is by J. W. Walker and Sons (1964).
The J. W. Walker organ in the church of Our Lady & St Joseph, London N1. Source: Andrew Pink
The J. W. Walker organ in the church of Our Lady & St Joseph, London N1. Source: Andrew Pink
The J. W. Walker organ in the church of Our Lady & St Joseph, London N1. Source: Andrew Pink
It is a very nice English interpretation of the organ reform movement or Orgelbewegung, a twentieth-century organ design tradition that began in Germany. Here no concessions are made to ‘romantic’/’symphonic’ organ design, although the temperament is equal.
The J. W. Walker organ in the church of Our Lady & St Joseph, London N1. Source: Andrew Pink
The J. W. Walker organ in the church of Our Lady & St Joseph, London N1. Source: Andrew Pink
The J. W. Walker organ in the church of Our Lady & St Joseph, London N1. Source: Andrew Pink
The J. W. Walker organ in the church of Our Lady & St Joseph, London N1. Source: Andrew Pink
The J. W. Walker organ in the church of Our Lady & St Joseph, London N1. Source: Andrew Pink
The instrument is beautifully crafted and more than 50 years on is still lovely to play. Works by the Baroque masters and Paul Hindemith ‘et al’ suit it very nicely. Sadly, I had no opportunity to record the instrument. Next time maybe.
References
Catholic Churches of London by Denis Evinson (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998)
‘Islington: Roman Catholicism’ in A History of the County of Middlesex. (London: Victoria County History, 1985), online resource accessed 10 October 2017
![Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer and St Thomas More Catholic Church. [Source: - geograph.org.uk]](https://i0.wp.com/andrewpink.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/chelsea-1.jpg?w=216&h=162&ssl=1 "chelsea")
![Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer & St Thomas More, Chelsea, London (UK). [Source: geograph.org.uk]](https://i0.wp.com/andrewpink.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/4104205_a6f72034.jpg?w=278&h=209&ssl=1 "chelsea")
![Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer & St Thomas More, Chelsea, London (UK). [Source: geograph.org.uk]](https://i0.wp.com/andrewpink.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/4104200_777f875c.jpg?w=278&h=203&ssl=1 "Chelsea")
![Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer & St Thomas More, Chelsea, London (UK). [Source: taking-stock.org.uk]](https://i0.wp.com/andrewpink.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/taking-stock.jpg?w=554&h=416&ssl=1 "Chelsea")
![George-Maydwell-Holdich (1816-96). [Source: Organ Historical Society opf Australia ohta.org.au]](https://i0.wp.com/andrewpink.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/george-maydwell-holdich.jpg?resize=97%2C150&ssl=1)
![]St Mary Moorfields (1820), Finsbury Circus, London EC2 (UK) by John Newman (1786–1859). "Illustrated London, or a Series of Views in the British Metropolis and its Vicinity" by A. H. Payne (London : 1846-1847)](https://i0.wp.com/andrewpink.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/st_mary_moorfields_-_exterior_front.jpg?w=254&h=194&ssl=1 "mellitus")
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