“To Show the Same Hospitality That We Receive From God” - The Old and New Churches of St Mary’s, Stoke Newington [By David McCulloch]
It must appear strange to passers-by, perhaps even some locals, that there are two substantial churches, almost next to each other, at the west end of Church Street. This blog will chart the history of the medieval and Tudor Old Church or “Old St Mary’s”, and the building and history of the New Church, “New St Mary’s”, the major hub of Anglican worship in Stoke Newington today. Although Anglican churches are far less significant as the religious heart of a community than they used to be, their symbolic value as the most prominent building in most communities still provides a hub at the centre of our diverse communities today.
The Old Church, or “Old St Mary’s”, is as well-known today to local people as an arts venue as its ancient sacred status as a church, although it is still used for a regular Sunday morning service. As the parish website says: “The Old Church strives to encourage mutual enjoyment of the arts, enable creativity for all, share the diversity of local cultures and challenge perceptions.”
A church on the site is first recorded in 1314, when a rector of Stoke Newington was appointed. Almost certainly, the earliest church on the site predates this first record. The benefice was in the hands of the Dean and Chapter of the medieval St Paul’s Cathedral. (To clarify, “rector” and vicar” are often used interchangeably, but incorrectly. A rector is a member of the clergy who holds the living of a parish in their own right. A vicar is a member of the clergy who is appointed by a rector to offer pastoral care and administrate the parish on the rector’s behalf. Both rectors and vicars who held a living before the 19th century were originally entitled to an income based on the rents and tithes calculated from the value of the lands granted to the benefice. This financial arrangement was altered by the end of the Victoria era). The right to appoint a rector of Stoke Newington passed to the crown in 1404, back to the dean and chapter of St Paul’s in 1414, then to the Prebendary of Stoke Newington, first appointed after the Reformation in 1585 (and demonstrating Stoke Newington’s expansion even by the late 16th century), and finally back to the Bishop of London in 1830.
The medieval church contained a chapel dedicated to St Thomas (almost certainly a chantry chapel with its own priest appointed to celebrate Mass after a bequest from a donor), and a rood screen was erected before 1500. The earliest mention of its dedication to St Mary dates to 1522, whilst the list of rectors survives continuously from 1562 onwards.
Most of the medieval church was rebuilt in 1563, with the work funded by Sir William Patten, lord of the manor of Stoke Newington. The work encased the medieval south porch and nave with a completely new chancel, side chapel, aisle, vestry and schoolhouse, all in brick (the fashionable building material of the mid-16th century, as at Hampton Court). Patten had been lowly born, but rose rapidly in the service of high-ranking officials like the Earl of Arundel, the Earl of Warwick, and the Duke of Somerset. He published a number of historical books and translations of small parts of the Bible. However, his fortune collapsed a decade after the rebuilding of Old St Mary’s, when it was found that he had defrauded the Exchequer while an official teller.
Within Old St Mary’s, a tomb monument survives to Patten's successor as lord of the manor, John Dudley, who was a prominent MP in the mid-16th century. Other monuments in the church are to Thomas Sutton, (the founder of the London Charterhouse and Charterhouse School, and one of the richest men in Elizabethan England) and the Hartropp family, who lived in Fleetwood House near Abney Park, and were descendants of Charles Fleetwood (a leading Parliamentarian and political ally of Oliver Cromwell). The Hartropp family were prominent local Dissenters in the late 17th century. The cemetery contains the graves of Anna Barbauld, James Stephen (the prominent lawyer and campaigner against the slave trade), along with Stephen’s second wife Sarah, and his niece Barbara, who were the elder sister and daughter of William Wilberforce.
Like many other communities close to London in the mid-17th century, Stoke Newington was a strongly Parliamentarian parish. The vestry (the church’s elective body) accepted the presentation by Colonel Alexander Popham of Thomas Manton as rector in 1644. Manton was a prominent preacher during the Civil War and Protectorate period and was a chaplain to Oliver Cromwell when he was Lord Protector. The vestry of Old St Mary’s also demonstrated its credentials as a model parish in the Commonwealth by electing another Independent minister as Manton’s successor, Daniel Bull, in 1656. Bull, like most Independent and Presbyterian ministers, was forced to leave his ministry by the passing of the Act of Uniformity of 1662, otherwise known as the “Great Ejection”. This led to the hardening of divisions between Anglicans and Dissenters, and the growth of the number of Dissenters in the Stoke Newington area from the 1660s onwards.
Bull's successor was Sidrach Simpson, who was also Master of Pembroke College, Oxford. He was criticised for renting pews to those outside the parish, failing to carry out repairs to the chancel, and expanding his rentable pews into the main body of the church. In the 18th century, Old St Mary’s did not see anything like the ecclesiastical ferment of the mid-17th century, but the increasing population of the area saw a considerable expansion of the church. A north aisle was built by 1717, an extension to the chancel followed in 1723, new west windows and the south walls raised in 1728, a new clock bell in 1770 and a raising of the west end to the same height as the rest of the church in 1785. Rectors were often non-resident in the 18th century and the ordinary ministers in the church were commonly curates, included Augustus Clissold of the well-known local family from Clissold Park.
The church's replacement was considered but rejected in 1791, but further restorations were required in 1806 and 1829. In the 19th century, however, further enlargement to the church proved unnecessary, as the Diocese of London’s solution to the rapidly increasing population of North London was the building of new churches in the area. 16th-century windows in the Old Church were donated by Jonathan Eade in 1811, but were sadly destroyed during the Blitz. However the Old Church was quickly repaired and weddings were able to be celebrated before Christmas the same year. The current church building is a remodelling in 1953 of the former medieval and Tudor church by Charles Marriott Oldrid Scott, a descendent of the famous George Gilbert Scott.
But what caused the building of “New St Mary’s”? To answer that, we need to briefly trace the development of the Tractarian movement in the Church of England. The Oxford Movement, a group of brilliant Anglican scholars led by men such as John Henry Newman, John Keble, Edward Pusey and William Hurrell Froude, sought to defend the Church of England in the 1830s through a series of sermons and essays from what they saw as attacks on its tradition from Dissenters, Roman Catholics and secular liberals. To demonstrate the authenticity of Anglican tradition, they studied the history and theology of the early Christian Church. However, their studies caused some of them to embrace Roman Catholicism, e.g. Newman, and this caused a widespread dislike for the movement among many Anglicans. In their early days, however, the Oxford Movement was often called Tractarianism, after their publications produced under the generic title “Tracts of the Times”.
Tractarianism began to have a profound influence on 19th century Anglicanism, chiefly characterised by the adoption of more Roman Catholic elements to Anglican worship. This development was opposed by the more Protestant or “Low Church” tradition of Anglicanism. By the 1850s, struggles between the Low Church faction and Tractarian factions within the parish of Stoke Newington effectively led to a split. This division was made physically apparent by the construction of the “New St Mary’s” church, which was completed in 1858. It was designed in the Gothic Revival version of the Decorated style by George Gilbert Scott, one of the outstanding church architects of the mid-19th century. It still serves today what remains of the original parish of Stoke Newington after other parishes were split from it in 1849, 1873, 1883 and 1892. The design of the church was loosely based on that of Salisbury Cathedral, the spire being integral to the design.
The rector during the period of building the New Church was Thomas Jackson, who, attracted congregations from all over London by his reputation as a preacher. However, this ministry was provided for him as a face-saving exercise by the Bishop of London, because Jackson had been appointed as Bishop of New Zealand in the early 1850s. Despite sailing there with his wife and family, and travelling around meeting local people, he had not found much acceptance in comparison with the previous bishop, and was obliged to return home.
Despite Jackson’s fame as a preacher in North London, funds for completing the steeple of New St Mary’s could not be found. This led to the composition of the following “humorous rhyme”:
““Stoke Newington’s a funny place
With lots of funny people;
Thomas Jackson built a church
But could not build a steeple.””
The steeple was only completed in 1890, by Gilbert Scott's son John Oldrid Scott. Jackson later became known as an early advocate for animal welfare, publishing books such as “Our Dumb (“Silent”) Companions” in 1860.
The 1890 development increased the capacity of the New Church to 1300 people. At the turn of the 20th century, along with the Rector, there were 4 curates, 120 Sunday School teachers and 1,000 scholars, 100 choristers and 140 mission visitors. Even judged by the standard of Anglicanism being the default religion of most people in England, the church was clearly flourishing. Restoration work and the installation of electric lighting took place during the 1920s, and in 1935 a legacy from Sir Herbert Ormond, Mayor of Stoke Newington and a lifelong member of St Mary’s, enabled the organ to be rebuilt to a very high standard. Tragedy struck when bombs fell on both churches during the London blitz of October 1940. Despite, difficulties, repairs to the New Church were finally completed by Nugent Cachemaille-Day in 1953.
In 1957 the New Church was re-dedicated after further restoration work, including the installation of a new organ and stained glass windows. In 1960 a window of unusual design was placed in the North Transept commemorating all who had worshipped in the parish over the ages.
The New Church today holds a regular service of Holy Communion each Sunday. The buildings are used in many different ways, both for worship and in support of the local community, particularly the most vulnerable. The website sums up the current mission of the parish: “The aim of our church is to show the same loving hospitality to everybody that we receive from God.” This openness to all is a characteristic of many contemporary Christian churches, particularly where members of the local community come from such diverse cultures and backgrounds.
This blog is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. It was made by New Unity and David McCulloch. Find out more: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
