Diocese of Chelmsford – Andrew Pink

W. D. Caröe in Walthamstow

St Barnabas church, St Barnabas Road, London E17 8JZ

The church of St Barnabas Walthamstow is located among streets of modest Victorian terraced houses and owes its existence to the generosity of two philanthropists.

Houses in St Barnabas Road, Walthamstow, London, c.2015.

The location of St Barnabas Wlathamstow, London E17

The first, Henry Casey (c.1834-1914), was a merchant in the City of London and the owner of much of the local building land and freely gave the land on which the church is built. The second was Richard Foster (1822–1910), another wealthy City merchant, who paid not only for the construction of the church but also for the construction of the vicarage and the hall that is now named after him.

Stafford Hall, London E17. (Source: Wikimedia)

The first church buidling was a temporary corrugated-iron building that was set up in 1900 as a chapel of ease within the parish of St Saviour Walthamstow pending the creation of the separate parish of St Barnabas. That iron buidling is still in situ and in use as a community centre called Stafford Hall.

W. D. Caröe (1857–1938). (Source: Wikimedia Commons).

By 1901 the separate parish of St Barnabas Walthamstow had been created, the advowson of the vicarage being vested in the diocesan bishop. The present church was opened in 1903. The architect of the church, the vicarage and the hall was William Douglas Caröe [pr. Ka(r)oh] (1857–1938), son of a Danish diplomat based in the UK. It was the intention that the church should be “a typical specimen of a simple and not expensive place of worship suitable for erection in less wealthy outlying districts where funds are most difficult to come by.” (Saxby, 16-17) The building, which cost £20,000, is mostly of red brick with stone dressings, a small spired turret at the north-west corner and windows in a late-Gothic style.

St Barnabas Walthamstow (1903) London E17, church hall, interior, Caröe (1903)

The west end of St Barnabas church (1903) Walthamstow E17 . (Source: http://queensroadstories.org)

St Barnabas Walthamstow (1903) London E17, interior looking east. (Source: Litten, 2003)

The eastern end of St Barnabas church (1903) Walthamstow E17 . (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

St Barnabas church (1903), Walthamstow, London. The south-east entrance and Vicarage seen from St barnabas Road.

St Barnabas Walthamstow (1903) London E17, nave detail. (Source: Litten, 2003)

St Barnabas Walthamstow (1903) London E17, main sanctuary, containing work by The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesiastical Embrodiery (1903), Alex Miller of the Guild of Handicraft (1910); A. W. N. Pugin (c.1845), and Dart & Francis (1903). . Source: Litten, 2003,

The church has a number of splendid fixtures and fittings many of which are not original to the church but contemporary with it and acquired in the closing decades of the twentieth century. A few are shown here:

St Barnabas Walthamstow (1903) London E17, altar frontal designed by Caröe (1903 by the Society for the Advancement of Ecclesiastical Embroidery. Source: Litten, 2003,

St Barnabas Walthamstow (1903) London E17, Purbeck-stone font, unknown maker. (Source: Litten, 2003)

St Barnabas Walthamstow (1903) London E17, copper candlesticks and cross, (c.1905), by the Guild of Handicrafts. Source: Litten, 2003.

St Barnabas Walthamstow (1903) London E17, oak rood (1921) designed by W. D. Caröe, carved by Nathaniel Hitch. (Source: Litten, 2003)

St Barnabas Walthamstow (1903) London E17. Chalice and patten by Edward Spencer, 1873-1938, (Artificers’ Guild), 1933. (Source: Litten, 2003)

St Barnabas Walthamstow (1903) London E17, painted stature of St Barnabas (1946) by Faith-Craft Works. (Source: Litten, 2003)

St Barnabas Walthamstow (1903) London E17, Lady Chapel altar reredos (1923) by Christopher Webb, from St John’s church Red Lion Square, London (demolished). Source: Litten, 2003

The organ

The two-manual organ (1904) by the company of Walter J. Fisher of Oxford is thought to incorporate work by Eustace Ingram of London (Litten, 13) and is located on the south side of the chancel at ground level even though Caröe, the church’s architect, has provided a first-storey gallery for it. The organ case is to the design of W. D. Caroe and was carved by Dent & Francis of Crediton, Devon (Litton 13; 20, fn.6), who worked on other oak fittings in the church (Litten, 8).

Console of the organ built by Walter J. Fisher, Oxford, 1904, for the church of St Barnabas, Walthamstow, London

Organ case – rear, looking west – of the organ built by Walter J. Fisher, Oxford, 1904, for the church of St Barnabas, Walthamstow, London

Power and light switches on the console of the organ built by Walter J. Fisher, Oxford, 1904, for the church of St Barnabas, Walthamstow, London

Pedal board of the organ built by Walter J. Fisher, Oxford, 1904, for the church of St Barnabas, Walthamstow, London

Organ case – rear, looking east – of the organ built by Walter J. Fisher, Oxford, 1904 for the church of St Barnabas, Walthamstow, London

Builder’s plate he organ built by Walter J. Fisher, Oxford, 1904, for the church of St Barnabas, Walthamstow, London,

The organ built by Walter J. Fisher, Oxford, 1904, for the church of St Barnabas, Walthamstow, London

The south-east side of the organ built by Walter J. Fisher, Oxford, 1904, for the church of St Barnabas, Walthamstow, London

References

Anglican Church Building in Victorian Walthamstow by S. Saxby. Series: Monograph New Series No. 46. (London: Walthamstow Historical Society, 2014
‘St Barnabas: organ specification‘, National Pipe Organ Register. Online resource accessed 4 No vember 2017
St Barnabas and St James the Greater, Walthammstow E17 by J. W. S. Litten (London: PCC of St Barnabas and St James the Great Walthamstow, 2001)
‘Richard Foster (philanthropist)‘, Wikipedia. Online resource accessed 4 November 2017
‘Walthamstow: Churches‘, A History of the County of Essex. Volume 6. (London: Victoria County History, 1973), pp.285-294. Online reource, accessed 4 November 2017
‘Walthamstow, St Barnabas‘, The Church of England: a church near you. Online resource accessed 4 November 20-17
‘W. D. Caröe‘, Wikipedia. Online resource, accessed 4 November 2017

Joseph Maltby Bignell alone in Walthamstow

St Michael and All Angels, London E17 6PQ

Walthamstow is an ancient settlement on the east bank of the River Lea, for which records date back to the time of King Edward the Confessor (1003-66). It is now absorbed within the north-east London suburbs.

Location of St Michael and All Angels church, London E17. Google Maps.

Walthamstow c.1840. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol6/pp240-250

With the coming of the railway in the middle of the nineteenth century the area saw rapid housing development by a variety of independant property speculators building homes for the respectable working and lower-middle classes, and much of the buidling stock dates from this time. Even so, the area around the medieval parish church maintains an air of earlier times, and self-consciously promotes itself as ‘Walthamstow Village’.

‘Walthamstow Village’ c.2016. https://www.gov.uk/government/case-studies/public-space-improvements-walthamstow-village

Walthamstow Village, c.1998 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walthamstow_Village,_1998.jpg

‘Walthamstow Village’ c.2016. https://www.gov.uk/government/case-studies/public-space-improvements-walthamstow-village

St Mary’s church, Walthamstow, London

Walthamstow Village, 15th-century ‘hall house’ at Orford Road, Walthamstow, London

Walthamstow’s nineteenth-century population boom brought a need for new churches and by 1903 there were twelve Anglican churches and seven Anglican missions in Walthamstow; in 2017 there are nine Anglican parishes. Among these the church of St Michael and All Angels (1885) is the largest, establshed with the generous support of the financier and philanthropist Richard Foster (1822-1910). It was built in an Early English Gothic style using dark brown brick to a design by the little-known Joseph Maltby Bignell (1827-87) who spent much of his architectural career working as an assistant to Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-78). St Michael and All Angel’s is – for now – his only known completed building.

St Michael and All Angels, Walthamstow, London E17, c.1907 (J.M. Bignell, 1885). http://boroughphotos.org/walthamforest/

Lady Chapel. St Michael and All Angels, Walthamstow, London E17 (J.M. Bignell, 1885). John Salmon @churchcrawler

St Michael and All Angels, Walthamstow, London E17, c.1907 (J.M. Bignell, 1885). http://boroughphotos.org/walthamforest/

St Michael and All Angels, Walthamstow, London E17 (J.M. Bignell, 1885). http://www.geograph.org.uk/

Currently the church has two pipe-organs. One, of indeterminate origin, is in a gallery on the south side of the chancel. It has two manuals and pedal and replaced an earlier one-manual and pedal organ that was situated here. The current instrument was decommissioned some decades ago when its console was removed and replaced by a now rather tired and unattractive sounding electronic instrument by the Allen Organ Company; our expectations of digital technology have moved on!

St Michael and All Angels church, Walthamstow, London E17. Allen organ console. South Choir gallery.

St Michael and All Angels church, Walthamstow, London E17. South Choir gallery pipe-organ.

The other pipe-organ is a rather nice Victorian, one-manual and pedal instrument in a handsome ‘Gothick’ case placed in the south east corner of the nave. It was built by the firm of G. M. Holdich originally for a church in the Essex countryside, where in 1965 it underwent restoration by the firm of N, P Mander. The instrument seems to have come to Walthamstow in about 2003. It has a bold, bright sound and while it is no masterpiece it is well-suited to congregational accompaniment and is almost contemporary with the building.

St Michael and All Angels church, Walthamstow, London E17. G. M. Holdich pipe-organ pedal board.

St Michael and All Angels church, Walthamstow, London E17. G. M. Holdich

St Michael and All Angels church, Walthamstow, London E17. G. M. Holdich pipe-organ keyboard.

We can date this instrument from G. M. Holdich’s business address given on the builder’s plate: ‘Euston Road, Kings Cross, London’ from where the firm traded between 1858 and 1866. This fact contradicts a date of 1844 that is given on a recent donor’s plate on the side of the organ.

St Michael and All Angels church, Walthamstow, London E17. G. M. Holdich pipe-organ, builder’s plate, 2003.

St Michael and All Angels church, Walthamstow, London E17. G. M. Holdich pipe-organ donor’s plate, 1965.

St Michael and All Angels church, Walthamstow, London E17. G. M. Holdich pipe-organ builder’s plates.

References

‘Joseph Maltby Bignell‘, Wikipedia. Online resource accessed 4 Nove,ber 2017
‘Richard Foster (philanthropist)‘, Wikipedia. Online resource accessed 4 November 2017
‘St Michael and All Angels, Northcote Road‘, National Pipe Organ Register. Online resource accessed 4 November 2017
‘St Michel and All Angels, Walthamstow‘. The Church of England: A Christian presence in every community. Online resource accessed 4 November 2017
‘Walthamstow‘ in The Environs of London: Volume 4, Counties of Herts, Essex and Kent by Daniel Lyons (London, 1796), pp. 204-30. Online resource accessed 4 November 2017
‘Walthamstow: Churches‘ in A History of the County of Essex: Volume 6, edited by W R Powell (London: Victoria County History, 1973), pp. 285-94. Online resource accessed 4 November 2017
‘Walthamstow: Introduction and domestic buildings‘ in A History of the County of Essex: Volume 6 pp. 240-50. Online resource accessed 4 November 2017

Barking with a prelate and a president

Barking Abbey, St Margaret of Antioch, London IG11

Map showing Barking in relation to central London.

This week, and for the second time this year, I have travelled to the pre-Saxon Thames-side town of Barking, eight miles east of Westminster and now the civic heart of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. My destination was once again the pipe organ of the thirteenth-century parish church of St Margaret of Antioch.

Until the 1850s Barking was home to a thriving port, most notable for supplying London with coal, fish and grain.

Barking mill, Barking quay, c2015

Barking mill, Barking quay, late c19

Barking, c2015

Barking miill. Barking quay, somewhat idealised, mid c.19.

Map of Barking, 1777

By the early twentieth century the area had become a rather insalubrious hub for chemical-based industries, a major London sewage works, and a coal-fired power station. Such polluting industry is now a thing of the past, and many former industrial sites have made way for much-needed housing.

Before the Dissolution of the English monasteries under Henry VIII, Barking had been the site of a great convent, Barking Abbey, created in the 7th century by Saint Æthelburh and her brother Saint Earconwald. The parish church of St Margaret of Antioch was sited next to the abbey church.

The importance of Barking Abbey can be glimpsed from the fact that its abbesses held precedence over all other abbesses in England, indeed many of Barking’s abbesses were former queens and the daughters of kings; three are saints. The site of the abbey ruins is now Abbey Green, a public park within which only the Curfew Tower gate to the abbey and the parish church remain intact.

Barking Abbey remains in the Abbey Green park

St Margaret’s church seen from the Barking abbey Curfew Tower in modern times

Barking Abbey, gateway and St Maragret's church

Barking Abbey Curfew Tower and St Maragret’s church, in modern times

Barking Abbey gateway, townside late c19, before clearance of the surrounding buildings

Barking Abbey Curfew Tiower gate, town-side late c19, before clearance of the surrounding buildings

In medieval times pilgrims were attracted to Barking to view the Holy Rood, a painted stone carving of the crucifixion in the Chapel of the Holy Rood inside the abbey’s Curfew Tower, where it survives to this day albeit in a less than pristine conidtion; history has not been kind to it. It is dated to between 1125 and 1150. According to Vatican records, on 22 March 1400 Pope Boniface IX granted a Papal licence (indult) to the Abbess of Barking “to have Mass and other services celebrated in the Oratory, in which a certain cross is preserved”.

Barking Abbey, the Curfew Tower, gateway and , Chapel of the Holy Rood. C19 engraving

Barking Abbey, the Holy Rood, , as seen in 1799.

Barking Abbey, the Holy Roo, as seen in modern times

Barking Abbey, the Holy Rood, as seen in modern times

The parish church itself is almost as wide as it is long and is very well maintained. The parish’s current Rector (and Assistant Bishop of Chelmsford) is Trevor Mwambe. previously the Bishop of Botswana whose intellect, spirit and clear-thinking leadership were not so well appreciated in Africa as they are in England. Also visiting the church when I was there was Sir Quett Masire, the 2nd President of Botswana (1980-98).

Bishop Trevor Mwambe, Rector of Barking, Assistant Bishop of Chelmsford

St Margaret’ s Barking, chancel screen and c18 plaster ceiling

St Margaret’s, Barking, the nave

St Margaret’s, Barking, the nave, from north to south

Sir Quett Masire, 2nd President of Botswana

St Margaret’s, Barking, floor plan

The church’s rather nice pipe organ dates from 1770, and was originally made by the London firm of Byfield and Green. Despite several nineteenth-century alterations and relocations within the building by the firm of J. W. Walker and Sons the organ has retained its original facade (now on the organ’ s west side) and its eighteenth-century sweetness of tone (although not so much of its eighteenth century tone-colour).