In the Beginning
In the 19th century a great revival in the Church of England was led by John
Keble, John Henry Newman and Edward Bouverie Pusey. The beginning is
generally acknowledged to have been in Oxford on Sunday, 14th July 1833,
when John Keble preached a sermon on’ National apostasy’ – and against the
general decline of the English Church. Thus initiated, the Oxford Movement
stressed the Church’s historic continuity with Catholic Christianity and the
importance of the sacraments. This doctrine was spread by means of a series
of pamphlets, ‘Tracts for the Times’, which earned the followers of the
movement the name ‘Tractarians’.
In Croydon, the founding of the Parish of St Michael and all Angels served
two purposes. There was a need for an additional church to accommodate a
growing population and there was also the spiritual need to establish a firm
centre of Catholic revival in the area.
Against opposition from established incumbents, five enthusiastic laymen, F
P Barraud, Charles Newton, H Hammond Parker, Frederick Lambert and George
Miller gained permission from the sympathetic Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr.
Tait, to found a new parish on condition that they could raise an endowment
of £2,000. They succeeded and on 28th July 1871 they became the first
Trustees of the Parish. They swiftly and wisely appointed the Rev Richard
Hoare [at the time assistant priest at St Saviour’s, Croydon] to be the
first Vicar. He stayed for 47 years.
The Upper Room
The first service was held on 26th November 1871 in a long narrow loft over
the Co-op Brewery Stables on the west side of St Saviour’s Road—soon to be
renamed St Michael’s Road. Access to the ‘Upper Room’ was by a steep and
narrow winding staircase. From the beginning, psalms and canticles were sung
to plainchant. Services were simple and congregational but even in this
early period St Michael’s began to build a reputation for its sound catholic
faith. For example on Good Friday 1872, the Three Hours Devotion was
conducted by the Vicar, for the first time in Croydon.
The site is now part of the West Croydon Bus Station.
The Wooden Church
In 1872 the Trustees bought a redundant wooden church from a Parish in
Folkestone for the sum of £170, complete with fixtures and fittings. There
were seven possible sites for its erection and one of these, the Poplar Walk
site, owned by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, appeared to be
the most suitable. However, due to conveyancing problems, the building had
to be stored in East Croydon Station Yard for some considerable while.
It was eventually erected and licensed for worship in September 1872.
The New Church
Clearly, there was urgent need of increased accommodation, so in 1874 a
Building Committee was formed. By 1876 £600 had been raised and John
Loughborough Pearson was invited to submit plans for a permanent church. The
builders chosen were Goddard & Sons of Dorking. The estimated cost was
£15,000 though the final cost was over £16,000. Money was raised by low
interest loans of £50 by members of the congregation with three families
pledging half of their income.
The foundation stone was laid by Horatio, Lord Nelson on 20th April 1880.
According to the Croydon Chronicle of 24th April there was great rejoicing
on that day with three celebrations of Mass, Matins, a public luncheon and
tea for 60 or 70 workmen. Cemented into the stone were some coins, a short
history of the church and a beautifully illustrated list of the names of
Lord Nelson, Clergy, Churchwardens, Architect and Builders.
When ‘completed’ Pearson’s church lacked the tower and vestries. It was not
until 1895 that the vestries were opened but the tower and spire have never
been completed. However on 19th October 1913 the porch and part of the tower
were dedicated by Archbishop Davidson.
John Loughborough Pearson
The Architect chosen to design St Michael’s was the youngest child of a
large Durham family. His working life spanned almost all of Queen Victoria’s
reign and his work can be seen throughout Great Britain. Even further afield
he had made the first plans for Brisbane Cathedral, although it was not
built in his lifetime.
Pearson’s earliest churches were much influenced by Pugin. His study of
German, French and Belgian Gothic inspired the soaring vaulting which is so
characteristic of Pearson’s later work. Some of his most impressive
interiors are constructed of ordinary brick and stone ribbing. St Michael’s
is a particular fine example of this style.
Pearson was particularly versatile and prolific, especially in the latter
years of his life. He designed such diverse buildings as Truro Cathedral,
the North transept of Westminster Abbey, Vicarages, convent and cemetery
chapels, country houses and even classrooms and a coalshed for a village
school.
His churches ranged from small country churches like St James’s Titsey, to
his masterpieces which include St Peter’s, Vauxhall and St Stephen’s,
Bournemouth and perhaps the greatest three, St Augustine’s, Kilburn, St
John’s, Red Lion Square, Holborn [bombed in 1941 and later demolished] and
St Michael and all Angels, Croydon. Pearson, a devout High Churchman, said
that the question to ask oneself on entering a church was not ‘Is it
admirable, is it beautiful?’ but ‘Does it send you on your knees?’ Of St
Michael’s he said, ‘this is a place for real worship’.
The Architecture
Described by Cannon Heazell in 1934, Saint Michael’s Church, Croydon is one
of Mr. Pearson’s happiest efforts. It is by no means this famous architect’s
largest church, but its proportions are so carefully planned that it appears
to be much larger than its actual size. The interior possess great dignity
and there is a restful balance of parts to which is added the beauty of
simple and quiet detail.
The church is a fine example of Mr. Pearson’s traditional style, after the
manner of the thirteenth century; its chief characteristic being brick
fillings to the panels. Internally, the church is faced with yellow London
stock bricks and Bath stone dressings. It is cruciform in plan and consists
of nave and choir, both with aisles; there is an ambulatory encircling the
apsidal sanctuary. There are north and south transepts with chapels opening
out from their eastern sides.
The church has a total internal length of one hundred and fifty feet, the
width between the piers is twenty-four feet, and the height of the nave
vault is fifty-three feet. There is a western internal porch, or narthex,
entered by a door on the north side; this is vaulted at a height of fourteen
feet, with a gallery over, and separated from the nave by an arcade of three
graceful arches.
The nave is divided into five bays, four only of which have arches opening
into the aisles, the western bay being occupied by the narthex. The ground
arcades are well proportioned and consist of piers of clustered shafts with
moulded bases and capitals. The piers carry simply moulded equilateral
arches. The triforium stage is merely a blank wall, six feet in height, and
is separated from the arcade and the clerestory by horizontal string
courses. The clerestory windows are single lancets widely splayed within.
The west end above the gallery over the narthex is completely filled with
two broad lancet windows. There is no chancel arch, but in place of this,
vaulting ribs with dog-tooth mouldings mark the divisions of the crossing
east and west.
The south transept is lighted by a group of three tall lancet windows set
high up. The north transept wall is treated differently, having an arcade of
four lights, surmounted by a large rose window, which fills the entire
space. The choir occupies one bay east of the crossings, beyond which is the
sanctuary of two bays and the semi-circular east end of five divisions.
An ambulatory surrounds the chancel, and on the south opens, by means of a
second arcade, into the Lady Chapel. This chapel is thirty five feet long,
fifteen feet wide, and eighteen feet high; it has a vaulted ceiling
supported by four clustered columns. East of the north transept is the
Chapel of St. George, behind which runs a vaulted corridor leading to the
vestries. Above St. George’s Chapel is the organ chamber at a height of
twenty-two feet from the floor.
The beautiful organ case occupies the whole space above the western choir
aisle and the east wall of the north transept. The high altar stands nine
steps above the floor of the nave, and is a little east of the chord of the
apse. Behind it is a wooden gradine which carries the altar ornaments,
giving a pleasing vista of the coloured windows of the ambulatory.
Undoubtedly, the distinctive feature of the whole church is to be found in
the architect’s skilful use of vaulting, the elegant curves of which are
very attractive. The exterior of the church, which is of red brick with Bath
stone dressings, is somewhat severe though very dignified. There are two
angle turrets on either side of the west window, and two stone spires north
and south of the choir aisle rising considerably above the chancel roof. The
church is crowned with a lofty fleche covered with copper, which rises to a
height of one hundred and twenty feet above the floor of the nave, and forms
a landmark in every direction (now, alas, this view is largely obscured by
the towering office blocks surrounding the church that have been built in
the last forty years). The principal entrance to the church is by the south
porch beneath the tower which at present is built to the height of sixty
feet. The architect’s design includes a lofty tower and spire.
With St James
Dating from 1829, St James, Croydon Common, was the first of the new
Anglican Churches to be built during the nineteenth century at a time when
the area was semi rural. St James’s Road was a narrow country lane which
crossed a bridge over a canal where Spurgeon’s Bridge is now.
In 1980, the church was dissolved and in the following year was amalgamated
with St Michael’s, which then added ‘with St James’ to its title. The final
service was Evensong at 3.30pm on 27th January 1980 in which the Vicar,
Choir and congregation of St Michael’s took part.