The building is Grade II* listed and the entry at the
English Heritage website [visit
link] tells us:
"Includes: BRICK LANE JAMME MASJID, FOURNIER STREET
French protestant chapel, 1743-4, converted into a synagogue in 1897 and into a
mosque in 1976, with further internal alterations in 1986. Probably designed by
Thomas Stibbs; 1897 alterations by Messrs Maples; minaret-like structure added
in 2009 by DGA Architects.
MATERIALS: Stock brick with stone plinth and dressings;
Welsh slate roof.
EXTERIOR: The two-storied south elevation to Fournier
Street is of six bays, with a slightly projecting four-bay centrepiece under a
broad triangular pediment; the latter contains a sundial with the date 1743 and
the Horatian motto 'UMBRA SUMUS' ('we are but shadow'). On the ground floor are
two round-headed doorways with double-leaf eight-panelled doors; their
pilastered stone surrounds having projecting impost blocks, keystones and
architraves. The windows, segment-headed on the ground floor and round-headed
above, have keystones, bracketed cills and multi-pane glazing with fixed glazing
bars. The east elevation to Brick Lane is of three bays, under a pediment
containing a small circular window. The fenestration is similar to that on the
south elevation, save that a Venetian window with Ionic pilasters occupies the
central two bays on the first floor. The middle two ground floor windows have
been blocked up. The roof structure, altered in 1897, comprises a slated mansard
set back behind a parapet, with a series of lead-covered dormers and a long
timber-and-glass skylight on the main ridge. From an artificial stone base at
the corner of the site rises a tubular steel structure, approximately 29 metres
tall, its form intended to recall that of a minaret; it was added in 2009 and
(at the time of the present evaluation in 2010) is too recent to be of special
interest.
INTERIOR: The pre-1897 chapel interior was a single
large hall, entered via the two south doorways from Fournier Street, with timber
galleries in the form of Doric colonnades to the east, north and west facing a
pulpit and reredos set against the south wall. The synagogue conversion involved
the removal of part of the east gallery to make room for a raised bimah (dais)
and ark in the centre of the east wall. These timber fittings were nearly all
removed in the 1986 remodelling, which created a two-level worship space with an
eight-sided lightwell towards the eastern end and a marble mihrab (a niche
indicating the direction of prayer) in the south-eastern corner; retained
features include six timber columns and two pedimented doorcases. The main
entrance is now from the north, via No. 59 Brick Lane; the two south doors
connect with enclosed staircases leading to the upper hall, and with a corridor
that runs round the back of the worship space into the courtyard behind. Below
are three barrel-vaulted cellars, once used for storage and now converted into
prayer rooms and an ablution area. Above, in the 1897 attic structure, are
several classrooms opening onto a skylit central corridor. A number of stone
tablets with Hebrew inscriptions survive here from the synagogue
period.
HISTORY: The building now known as the Brick Lane Jamme
Masjid was built in 1743-4 as the Neuve Eglise, a French Protestant chapel
serving the Huguenot community then dominant in the Spitalfields silk-weaving
industry. It was an offshoot of the much older French church in Threadneedle
Street in the City of London, and was probably built by the latter's surveyor
Thomas Stibbs. The building's later history reflects the changing ethnic and
religious character of this part of east London. In the early years of the C19,
Jewish immigration to the area prompted the Society for Propagating Christianity
among the Jews, an evangelical group founded by the Jewish-born convert Joseph
Frey, to lease the building as its headquarters. In 1819 the chapel passed to
the Wesleyan Methodists, but reverted to its earlier missionary use later in the
century. In 1897 it was acquired by a Lithuanian Orthodox Jewish group known as
the Mahzikei Hadas ('Strengtheners of the Faith'), and converted by the Maples
firm to become the Spitalfields Great Synagogue, with a Torah school
accommodated within the remodelled attic space. In the second half of the C20
the Jewish population dispersed to the suburbs, making way for a new wave of
Muslim immigrants from eastern India and Bangladesh; the synagogue fell into
disuse for a time before becoming a mosque in 1976. In 1986 the remaining
internal galleries were removed and the interior remodelled. At the end of 2009
a freestanding minaret-like structure designed by DGA Architects was added to
the building's Brick Lane frontage.
Adjoining the main building at No. 59 Brick Lane is a
three-storey brick house, built along with the chapel in 1743 and originally
serving as its vestry and school. This building, now part of the mosque complex,
is listed separately at Grade II.
SOURCES: Cherry, B, O'Brien, C and Pevsner, N, The
Buildings of England - London 5: East (2005). Kaddish, S, Jewish Heritage in
England: An Architectural Guide (2006).
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The Brick Lane Jamme Masjid,
built as a Huguenot chapel in 1743-4, converted into a synagogue in 1897 and
into a mosque in 1976, with further alterations in 1986, is listed for the
following principal reasons: * Architectural: a handsome and externally intact
example of mid-C18 chapel design * Group value: close architectural and historic
association with the Grade II listed former school and vestry building at No. 59
Brick Lane * Historical: a rare surviving instance of a Huguenot chapel, located
at the centre of London's principal C18 silk-weaving district * Sequence of
uses: a uniquely complex instance of the 'recycling' of a place of worship, its
succession of religious uses encapsulating the rich migration history of East
London."
The World Write website [visit
link] gives some cultural information:
"This plain but gracious rectangular brick property with
tall arched windows which lets the light flood in, is today a mosque, the London
Jamme Masjid. Set high up on the wall is a vertical sundial with the Latin
inscription Umbra Sumus, meaning'we are shadows'. This inscription refers both
to the workings of the sundial and as reminder that our life on earth is
fleeting. The inscription has come to have an added significance for this area,
as waves of immigrants have arrived and then moved on.
This building is the
antithesis of Christ Church, the Hawkesmore church at the previous stop. Rather
than being built by the authorities to quell nonconformity among immigrants,
this place of worship has been at the heart of communities that have settled
here since the early 1700s. Each wave of immigrants has established its own
place of worship here and as such the building provides a physical timeline
illustrating waves of immigration into the area. It was built in 1742 as a
Protestant Church for Huguenots. Then, a century later in 1809 it was sold to
the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews. But just like the
church we saw in the previous stop it was unable to convert the local population
to Christianity, so a mere 10 years later the building was taken over by
Methodists. They stayed a bit longer, almost 80 years until 1898, after which it
became the Spitalfields Great Synagogue for newly settled Jewish immigrants. Its
most recent incarnation came in 1976 when it became a mosque, the London Jamme
Masjid mosque it is today.
The Bangladesh Welfare
Association, which is right next door on Fournier Street is associated with the
first generation of Bengali immigrants and was set up to provide support to a
community establishing itself in the area. It was first set up in the 1950s when
it was known as the Pakistani Welfare Association, before changing its name when
Bangladesh became independent in 1971.
Neither today, nor in the past have the immigrant
communities living in this area been as homogeneous as they may have appeared.
In 1904, for example, Jewish anarchists threw bacon sandwiches at Orthodox
worshippers outside what was then a synagogue and held 'Yom Kippur Balls', (pork
feasts) on the holy Jewish fasting day of Yom Kippur to annoy conservative
rabbis and spread their radical secular message.
Today, when the Muslim community is discussed in the
media it is also portrayed as a homogeneous and singular entity. As much as the
government would like to have one central religious body or leader that can
speak for the whole Muslim society in London or Tower Hamlets, the idea of a
homogenous fixed cultural whole does not fit reality. Only 6% of Muslims see the
Muslim Council of Britain (founded in 1997) as their representative. Muslims for
Secular Democracy, launched in June 2006, has argued for the need to stop
stereotyping Muslims as one group of 'dysfunctional people with burning
resentments'.
It is important to realise that popular perceptions of
Jews in the early 20th century and Muslims in the 21st are quite different.
Jewish people, like the Irish before them, were portrayed as animals rather than
humans and a physically inferior race. After the Holocaust such views of racial
superiority were rightly discredited. In 1950 UNESCO, a department of the
newly-formed United Nations, issued a statement affirming that the human race
was one and the same. This sounded the death knell for 'scientific racism', but
rather than usher in a new era of antiracist optimism, sadly the focus merely
shifted from racial categorisation to cultural
categories."