Patrick Comerford
During my rambles around Hampstead last week, I visited the two Saint John’s: Saint John-at-Hampstead, the ancient parish church on Church Row, and Saint John’s Downshire Hill, the last remaining proprietary chapel within the Diocese of London.
But I also took time to see three of the many former churches found throughout Hampstead: Saint Stephen’s Church, considered the masterpiece of SS Teulon; the former Lyndhurst Road Congregational Church with its unusual hexagonal shape and now one of the world’s largest recording rooms; and the former Trinity Presbyterian Church, now a private house on the corner of the High Street and Willoughby Road.
Saint Stephen’s Church on Rosslyn Hill is a remarkable, restored Grade I listed building that has been rescued from vandalism and near-loss and is being used by the public and the community once again.
The initiative to build Saint Stephen’s came from churchgoers at Saint John’s, Downshire Hill, in 1864 when they decided to build a district church for the people living on new streets between Belsize Park and Hampstead such as Lyndhurst Road and Thurlow Road.
The site for a new church on Rosslyn Hill was donated by Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson (1800-1869), who was the lord of the manor of Hampstead and patron of the living. He had wanted to develop the area with housing but was frustrated by the terms of his father’s will and by protests from the local residents.
The Church Commissioners offered the commission to design a new church to the architect Ewan Christian (1814-1895), who lived in Hampstead and who restored Southwell Minster, Carlisle Cathedral, Christ Church, Spitalfields, and Saint Peter’s Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton. When he declined, the post went to Samuel Sanders Teulon (1812-1873), who also lived in Hampstead.
Work on Teulon’s ‘mighty church’ began in January 1869 and it was consecrated within a year on 31 December 1869 by the Bishop of London. A district was assigned for a new church in 1870 and the Vicar of Hampstead was the patron.
Saint Stephen’s was finished within three years of its consecration. The steeple was completed 1871, with a peal of 10 bells by Taylors of Loughborough added in 1872. The clock and carillon were installed in 1873.
Saint Stephen’s, considered by many to be Teulon’s masterwork, is in Gothic style and markedly French in outline, with steep roofs and a massive square tower. The church has an apsidal chancel with north and south transepts, a massive tower with spires, an aisled nave with a west gallery and north, west and south porches.
The broad nave was well-lit. Placing the tower east of the nave created a long chancel, which led to much decoration. It was said to have one of most moving Victorian interiors.
When Teulon was offered the commission, he had requested to build the church in brick. For the exterior, he chose brick from Dunstable, which when new was described as varying in colour from pale grey to Indian red giving the church a mottled appearance.
The decorative stone bands on the exterior were of Kentish Rag from Maidstone and, as if to contrast the exterior, the inside walls were faced with grey, tallow and white bricks from Huntingdonshire laid in stripes and panels.
The most spectacular ornamental brickwork was under the tower and in the transepts and was slightly Moorish in style. The sculptural and mosaic decoration was unusually rich and varied, much of which was created by Thomas Earp and Antonio Salviati (1816-1890).
Salviati was originally from Venice, and had trained in Murano. He had already installed Venetian mosaics in more than 50 churches in England, including work on the altars, the walls, the choirs, the pavements, and the baptismal fonts. His work can be seen in Westminster Abbey, Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, and Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, and in the Houses of Parliament and the Chamberlain Memorial Fountain in Birmingham.
The alabaster roundels, dating from 1880, included one of Latimer given by the architect Ewan Christian, who had become a member of the congregation, in a personal protest against Anglo-Catholicism.
The stained glass windows were by Lavers and Westlake, and Clayton and Bell, including a memorial window to Teulon.
Soon after Saint Stephen’s was completed, a school was established in the crypt. The chapel in south transept was in place in 1905, and the stalls and screen were designed by Temple Moore in 1912.
The cost of building was first estimated at £7,500, but with its rich ornamentation it cost three times more than estimated. The money was raised entirely by subscriptions and large donations from local people.
Saint Stephen’s was intended for ‘Low Church’ services, and had seating for 1,200 people. By 1886, the attendance figures were 752 in the morning and 620 evening; by 1903, these figures had dropped to 301 in the morning and 242 in the evening.
The church suffered from subsidence in 1896, 1898 and 1901, and serious cracking appeared in 1969 when the foundations for a new Royal Free Hospital were being dug. The church closed in 1977 and the parish was united with All Hallows’, Gospel Oak. The bells were returned to Taylors of Loughborough in 1982.
While new uses were being sought for the church, the interior was severely vandalised over the next 20 years. The Diocese of London appeared to have no firm plans for the building, and was criticised for neglect, as most of the fittings were stolen or vandalised.
Local campaigners were worried about a deteriorating structure that the Church of England was accused of leaving to rot. The Greater London Council made a grant for urgent repairs in 1985, and English Heritage deemed the restoration and preservation of Saint Stephen’s of the utmost importance.
After decades of neglect, when it was occupied by squatters, the church was joined with the school next door in 1998. Saint Stephen’s was restored over three phases in the early 21st century when it was leased to the Saint Stephen’s Restoration and Preservation Trust.
Salviati’s mosaic roundels of various Passion symbols can still be seen in the former chancel, and a few roundels featuring angels that surround a rose window above the entrance to the side chapel are intact. But most of his work in the nave seems to have been lost.
Michael and Andrea Taylor have been credited with a lengthy but successful struggle to rescue the building. Saint Stephen’s is now a venue for public and social events, music, wedding receptions and corporate functions and a focal point for educational and local community enterprises. Hampstead Hill School has a Nursery and Pre-Preparatory School based at Saint Stephen’s and the adjacent School Hall.
The number of ‘nonconformist’ chapels in Hampstead remained small until the late 19th century. The former Congregational Church on the corner of Lyndhurst Road and Rosslyn Hill faces the former Saint Andrew’s Church, was built in 1884.
Congregationalists had no place of worship in Hampstead until New College at College Crescent, Finchley Road, was opened in 1851. New College Chapel was built on the corner of Upper Avenue and Adelaide Road in 1853. Although it was not part of the college, it was closely linked with it.
But Congregationalists did not have a chapel nearer Hampstead until the 1880s, partly because of the hostility of Anglican landowners. Lyndhurst Road Congregationalist Church on Rosslyn Hill originated in services held in an iron building on Willoughby Road by the Revd JB French from 1876. It was supported for two years by London Congregational Union until progress ceased and French resigned.
The theologian Robert Forman Horton (1855-1934) was persuaded by the stockbroker TT Curwen, a Hampstead resident, to preach at Sunday services in 1879-1880. Enthusiastic followers began mission work in Kentish Town and formed a church with about 60 members in 1880. Membership had reached 220 by 1883 and the iron church often held 600 people in a space for 440.
The Ecclesiastical Commissioners sold the four-acre site at Rosslyn Grove to four of the church members, who kept less than an acre as a church site and sold the rest to finance the building.
The church was designed in 1884 by Alfred Waterhouse (1830-1905) as an irregular hexagon of deep red brick with majolica dressings in Romanesque style, and a seating capacity of 1,500. A lecture hall and school were added later.
Waterhouse is associated with Gothic Revival architecture, and is best known for his designs for Manchester Town Hall and the Natural History Museum in London. His other works include Eaton Hall in Cheshire, designed for the Duke of Westminster, the Hall in Balliol College, Oxford, the former Foster’s Bank on Sidney Street, Cambridge, and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors on Great George Street, Westminster.
Lyndhurst Road Congregational Church was unusual as the body of the church is hexagonal, built in purple brick with red brick and terracotta dressings in a Romanesque style. The builders were J Parnell & Son and the church cost £15,970 to build.
Horton, the first non-Anglican to have a teaching position at the Oxford University since the Reformation, became the full-time minister in 1884, and remained until 1930. He was an influential writer and preacher, and his Sunday night lectures drew many working men. Attendance in 1886 was 857 in the morning and 1,165 in the evening.
Membership peaked at 1,276 in 1913, but fell to about 1,000 during World War I and to 613 in 1939.
The United Reformed Church (URC) was formed in 1972 with the union of the Presbyterian Church of England and the Congregational Church of England and Wales. Lyndhurst Road Church became part of the URC in 1972, but it finally closed in 1978.
Lyndhurst Hall is now one of the world’s largest recording rooms. It was opened by Sir George Martin in 1992, and the music recorded here has been heard in cinemas and homes across the globe. The live area can accommodate a full symphony orchestra and choir simultaneously, with space for film scoring, orchestral recordings and live performances.
Trinity Close at the south end of Willoughby Road, close to Hampstead High Street and the Heath, is a former Presbyterian chapel in Hampstead dating back to 1862 which has been converted to residential use.
The house was part of a former Scottish Presbyterian Church that stood on the site and that dated back to the mid-19th century. Scottish Presbyterians began to worship regularly in Hampstead in 1832 in the house of Dr John Thompson on Pond Street. The Temperance hall in Perrin’s Court was rented in 1844 and recognised as preaching station.
It became known as Trinity Presbyterian Church and by the end of 1845 average Sunday attendances were 130 in the morning 80 in the evening. A pastor was appointed in 1846, the congregation moved to Well Walk Chapel in 1853, and when that building became dilapidated a site was bought on the corner of High Street and Willoughby Road in 1861.
The church was designed by Campbell Douglas and opened in 1862. The early members were mostly Scottish. The church was enlarged in 1882 and 1889. When the church closed in 1962, the members joined Saint Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Finchley Road. Shops were built on part of the site and the rest of the building was converted into Trinity Close in the 1970s.
Trinity Close is now a four-bedroom home of almost 2,000 sq ft, with living spaces set over a vaulted upper level, two terraces, a private front garden and designated off-street parking.
The original Presbyterian presence in Hampstead dates back to the decade after the Caroline restoration. Those early Presbyterians met in Ralph Honeywood’s house on Red Lion Hill, where he had a chaplain from 1666, and they continued meeting there until Red Lion chapel was built close by. That congregation became Unitarian in the mid-18th century, and the story of Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel is one for another blog posting.
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