So what is the story of Christchurch, and why, less than a hundred years after it was newly built, was it demolished?
Back in the days of high numbers attending church services and – for many – no means of transport other than by foot, parishoners living in homes remote from the nearest town or village would have faced a long and often muddy or dusty trek to attend Sunday worship. In response to this problem, “chapels of ease” were built to serve the requirements of scattered communities and by the 1860s a need for such a chapel was identified in the Kintbury/Inkpen area. The Earl of Craven donated land for the project and its position at Kintbury Crossways must have seemed the ideal location between the villages of Kintbury and Inkpen.
The architect chosen for this project was Thomas Talbot Bury, a person well known to the diocese. He had designed St Mary’s, Lambourn Woodlands and St Gregory’s, Welford, both in the early 1850s as well as working on St Mary’s, Kintbury in what Pevsner was, much later, to call a “heavy handed restoration”. The old vicarage in Kintbury is also the work of Thomas Talbot Bury. Architecturally, it seems, he was the man of the moment.
The new church was to be in the fashionable “Decorated Gothic” style, one which took inspiration from medieval buildings such as Westminster Abbey and Salisbury Cathedral. However at 95 feet long and 46 feet wide, Christchurch would be of modest size with pews enough for 250 adults. All seating would be free.
The tower, however, was to be particularly eye-catching, and was described in the Illustrated London News as being:
“…very effective, both from its massiveness and from the picturesque appearance of the spire, which is of tile in two stages with perforated woodwork intervening.”
The building was to be constructed of locally made brick with Bath stone and the work carried out by local craftsmen. A Mr Cumnor from Kintbury was to be responsible for the brickwork and plaster while fellow Kintburian, Mr Cruise was to be responsible for the woodwork. A Mr Keats from Newbury was the mason chosen to work with the Bath stone.
When it came to the stained glass windows, however, craftsmen from further afield were sought. Heaton & Butler were leading stained glass window designers and manufacturers, working in the fashionable Gothic Revival style. They had already produced a window for St Mary’s, Kintbury: theirs is the window to the left of the south door, featuring Jesus walking on the water.
The Illustrated London News mentions a “good sculpture” of the Last Supper by “Mr Farmer”. I think this most likely refers to Farmer of Farmer & Butler, a London firm of architectural sculptors who had worked on sculptures for the Natural History Museum.
There was also to be a richly carved pulpit and font.
The total cost of building this new church came in at £3133, 1shilling, 9 1/2d. This might not seem a lot to us today but it needs to be remembered that this was at a time when the average wage for the labouring people attending its services was around 10 shillings (50 pence) a week. Furthermore, at the time of the building being opened, only £1835, 3s 0¼d had been raised whilst it was intended that £2035 3s 01¼d should be raised by a subscription and grants. A further sum of £1097 18s 8¼d should be achieved, it was hoped, by, “opening services and subsequent efforts.” One can only imagine the sort of discussions being held by those responsible for overseeing the financing of the project when the full cost was not realised before the church was opened.
However, certain of the upper classes had deep pockets, and it would have looked good to be seen as a benefactor of this new place of worship. Members of the Dunel family of Barton Court, Kintbury, presented the pulpit, font and reredos; the sacramental plate and six of the windows were given by the Rev J.W. Dundas and two chancel windows by Talbot Bury himself.
The completed church was consecrated on Tuesday, May 28th 1867 by the Lord Bishop of Oxford. The Newbury Weekly News reported on the event and noted in particular the Minton tiles on the chancel steps, the splendid altar cloth, the elaborate reredos and the handsome font supported by marble columns. It was reported that, “an air of comfort and extreme neatness pervades the interior”. Christchurch, it seems, epitomised Victorian values of good taste and design.
Although most of Christchurch’s 250 “free” seats must have been intended for the less wealthy people living in scattered communities between Inkpen and Kintbury, it seems the great and the good turned out to attend that first service. In the style of reporting typical of the mid-19th century, the Newbury Weekly News name-checked well over thirty people including Rev H.W. Majendie, J.W.Dundas, G.C.Cherry Esq. ,Captain Butler, RN. and T. Bury, F.S.A. himself. One wonders if any of the local agricultural labourers crept quietly in at the back.
I do not know if the £1097 18s 8¼d outstanding cost was easily raised in the months or years after Christchurch was consecrated. So far I have found out very little about the life of the church over the next eighty years. But we do know that by the 1940s the building had severe problems and required extensive repairs. Whether this was due to neglect, stresses resulting from the effects of two world wars upon a rural community or problems inherent in the building’s structure, I have not been able to find out. There is a suggestion that the building was suffering from an infestation by death-watch beetle, but I have not been able to confirm this. Was it simply that Christchurch was not loved enough as a place of worship for anyone who could afford it to contribute to its repairs? By the middle of the twentieth century, the neo-gothic style of architecture so beloved of the Victorians was out of fashion, derided and disliked; it was still some time before the better examples would be championed by John Betjeman. In Newbury, St Joseph’s RC church, opened in 1928, and St John’s, opened in 1955, are both examples of how fashion and tastes in architectural styles had changed.
Whatever the reason, in 1948 the decision was taken to close the church and in the mid 1950s it was pulled down. By the time I wandered into the churchyard in 1975, all traces of the building had long gone.
It all seems so sad to me: the craftsmen who worked on that building in the 1860s must have done so with pride, probably thinking their work would last for, perhaps, hundreds of years. Mrs Dunel had presented the font in memory of her children; perhaps she imagined it would be in use to baptise other people’s children for many, many years to come. I am sure none of the people who worked, or contributed in other ways, with pride and love to achieve what must have been – for some years at least – an impressive building, imagined that within the space of a lifetime the decision would be made to tear it down.
Tessa Lock.
Kintbury and Beyond 