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Hatcham
St James

Built: 1853 - 54
Architect: W L B Granville
Diocesan Record Office: London Metropolitan Archives

The church was made redundant in 1981 and leased to the Laban Centre of Movement and Dance. The replacement St James' church occupies the ground floor of what was the Herald Youth Club nearby.

Description

"A building committee was formed in 1844, and a temporary church was built in 1846. A site was bought from the governors of Christ’s Hospital. The design was made by W L B Granville, and shown at the Royal Academy in 1849. The Ecclesiologist found fault with the design: ‘This promises to be one of the worst specimens of modern Pointed which the last few years have produced.. . We were in hopes that this particular form of architectural enormity had died away.’

The foundation stone was laid on 18 June 1853, and the church was consecrated on 17 October 1854. The cost was £4,695. From the ecclesiological point of view, there is a good deal of fault to find. The details were old-fashioned at the time that the church was built, and the plan is pretentious: why should a parish church of this size have transepts with both eastern and western aisles?

The Rev A H B Granville resigned in 1863, and was succeeded by the Rev Arthur Tooth - a person of no special importance in himself, but who is remembered as one of the confessors of the ritualistic movement. In his time there were several alterations to the church, by F Rogers. An unusual operation was performed on the north transept: the aisles were extended by apses, and one was made into a sacristy, and the other into a baptistery. He also erected a screen, a Lady chapel altar, and several windows. An altar stone was inserted into the wooden holy table - and afterwards removed. Tooth was imprisoned in Horsemonger Gaol in 1877, under the Public Worship Regulation Act.

A new vestry was built in 1897, designed by W. Gilbee Scott.

The inside has been redecorated, and there is post-War glass by Francis H. Spear."

(from 'Parish Churches of London', Basil F L Clarke, Batsford, 1966)

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