Patrick Comerford
When I saw the Summertown United Reformed Church and Twining House side-by-side on Banbury Road in Oxford last week, I thought one had been the church hall for the other. Instead, I came across the story of Alderman Francis Twining, an enlightened and benevolent grocer and property developer, and the story of the Congregationalists in north Oxford.
Both buildings stand side-by-side among the attractive shops along this stretch of Banbury Road, and provide insights into the ways this suburb of north Oxford developed in the late Victorian and Edwardian years. The church has historic, social, philanthropic and architectural significance in Oxford and has contributed to the character of Summertown. It also has links with Mansfield College, an academic and intellectual centre for Congregationalism and nonconformism in Oxford.
The church was built in 1893 as a Congregational church to meet the needs of a growing community in Summertown and in greater Oxford. It was designed by the Oxford builder Thomas Henry Kingerlee (1843-1929), who designed many prominent buildings in Oxford, including the Rivermead Hospital, Headington Junior School, the original New Theatre, Elliston & Cavell (later Debenhams), the Oxford Marmalade Factory and Twining House.
TH Kingerlee was an active Congregationalist and a deacon in George Street Congregational Church. He was a local magistrate, a Liberal member of Oxford City Council, an Alderman in 1906 and twice Mayor of Oxford, in 1898-1899 and 1911-1912. He stood as the Liberal candidate for MP of Oxford in 1895, but was defeated by the Conservative candidate, Arthur Annesley (1843-1927), 11th Viscount Valentia, who held the seat until 1917. The Kingerlee firm survives today as a fifth generation business, now based in Kidlington.
Kingerlee used similar patterns when he was building Summertown Congregational Church in 1893 and Twining’s grocery shop next door at 294 Banbury Road a decade later in 1902 – now known as Twining House and the offices of the estate agents Breckon and Breckon.
Congregational churches and other nonconformist churches often have two front doors, one for women to enter and one for men. But Kingerlee’s church in Summertown has only one front door to the narthex, with two inner doors then opening to the nave.
The west door is solid timber with ironwork strap hinges that have elaborate curled elements. Inside, the craft work in the church is of the highest quality, typical of Kingerlee’s work. The main lobby or narthex has encaustic geometrical tiles, and the interior details include the hammerbeam roof, the floorboards and the pews, complete with original name card holders and cast iron umbrella holders. The organ dates from ca 1899.
The church has no aisles, columns or side chapels, and there is no decoration, reflecting the Puritan roots of nonconformists. The church was extended with the addition of meeting rooms in 1910.
The story of the growth and development of Congregationalism in Oxford, from the Puritans of the mid-17th century up to the early 21st century, is told by Michael Hopkins in his MPhil thesis at the University of Birmingham in 2010, including the story of the New Road Meeting House, the Congregational Churches on George Street and in Summertown, Mansfield College and other suburban and village chapels.
The modern Congregationalist movement in Oxford began with a secession from New Road Baptist chapel. A breakaway group of 12 New Road members was meeting in the house of William Cousins, coachmaker, in High Street in 1830, and later in the home of Samuel Collingwood, printer to the university, in St Giles’s Street.
Both men accepted the baptism of children, as did most of the 28 New Road members who had seceded by 1836. The new group’s stated aim was ‘to supply the lamentable deficiency of places of worship where evangelical truth was preached’. The first Congregational chapel in 1832 in George Street was a brick building in Anglo-Norman style, designed by J Greenshields of Oxford. It could seat 500 people, and this number had increased to over 700 by 1851.
The new society grew rapidly: there were 70 members in 1837, 143 in 1841 as well as a large Sunday school, and there were congregations of over 250 at times in 1851.
The Revd David Martin was the pastor for over 20 years (1858-1879), but after his time numbers began to fall decreased, and the church's decline was hastened by vacancies in the pastorate, rapid turnover of ministers, difficulties in raising money for the minister's stipend, and the gradual depopulation of the city centre which began in the 1880s. Members lived at rather greater distances from each other than those in Summertown and formed a less close community.
The opening of Mansfield College in 1889 provided Congregationalists in the university with a chapel of their own, but a few academics, including the lexicographer Sir James Murray (1837-1915), attended the George Street chapel.
Despite a continued decline in numbers, a site for a new church in St Giles’s Street was bought in 1900, but the proposal was abandoned in 1910. By 1930, congregations averaged only about 50, the congregation disbanded in 1933 and the church was closed and was sold to the city council.
As for the church on Banbury Road, Congregationalist services started in Summertown in 1838, partly to counter the growing influence of the Tractarian or Oxford Movement. A house was registered for worship in 1840, and 22 members left the George Street church in 1843 to form a new congregation in Summertown. A chapel in Middle Way was opened in 1844 with HB Bulteel among the preachers at the opening service. The new church, which served a poor area that was still a village, depended greatly on the support of prominent families such as the Lindseys and the Pharaohs, but poverty meant there were long gaps in the appointments of pastors.
A Methodist local preacher JM Crapper acted as minister in 1850-1851. The chapel was almost full in 1851, with average congregations of 160 in the morning and 190 in the evening. Methodist Free Church ministers helped at Summertown between 1867 and 1873, and from the late 1880s the pulpit was often supplied by students from Mansfield College.
Although the congregation had long been without a minister, a new and larger church was built on the Banbury Road in 1893. The foundation stone of the new building was laid on 13 June 1893 by William Crosfield, MP for Lincoln. The new church opened on 25 January 1894. The service was unusual in that it included the ordination of the new pastor named Eason, who had come from Ireland to study at Mansfield College, before being ordained as pastor at Summertown.
Eason resigned at the end of 1901 following a call from a church in Derry. By then, membership was 44 and Sunday congregations averaged 200.
Special services to attract the many newcomers to the neighbourhood helped to raise membership from 58 in 1897 to 81 in 1901. Between the World War I and World War II, a number of professional people joined the congregation, which until then had been largely working-class.
A manse was bought on 6 Beechcroft Road in 1922, and later manses were at 226 Banbury Road, 42 Lonsdale Road and then 100 Victoria Road.
When the church on George Street closed in 1933, a small number of members moved to the church in Summertown. The Revd Henry Roberts Moxley of Summertown was a member of the founding committee of Oxfam in 1942.
A prominent member from the 1950s was the theologian the Revd Dr John Marsh (1904-1994), Principal of Mansfield College (1953-1970), the Congregational representative on the World Council of Churches, and later President of the Faith and Order Committee, and author of the Pelican Commentary on Saint John’s Gospel (1968). Other members at that time included the New Testament scholar Charles Harold (CH) Dodd (1884-1971), who had retired as Norris–Hulse Professor of Divinity in Cambridge in 1949.
After the Congregational Church on Cowley Road closed in 1962, Summertown’s place as the main Congregational church in Oxford was undisputed.
The ecumenical advances at Summertown and Blackbird Leys were well ahead of their time, driven by Congregationalists. But Hopkins had found that while the witness of the Congregational tradition in Oxford was strong, those efforts were divided in the face of unrecognised opportunities. Without the university or Mansfield College things would have been very different, Hopkins argues. But Summertown, in stark contrast to the other Congregational churches, developed a new model of church that was a success before the United Reformed Church was formed in 1972.
The Summertown Church Partnership was formed in 1982 after 18 months work, involving the Anglican parishes of Saint Michael’s Summertown and Saint Peter’s Wolvercote, now working as a team, and Summertown United Reformed Church, formalising their long commitment to shared outreach and church life. The Revd Ruth Whitehead became Summertown’s first female minister in 1997.
Summertown United Reformed Church closed for worship in 2022 after a continuing presence in that part of Oxford stretching back 179 years. It is still used by local arts groups. The Wessex Synod Trust of the URC owns the building and continues to hire out the premises to community groups, but now intends to sell it. A group of users have come together as Summertown Arts Community (SAC) to raise money to buy the building, and has until 28 July to buy the premises.
The active churches of the United Reformed Church in Oxford today include Saint Columba’s Church on Alfred Street, off the High Street.
