Saving unimportant churches for the nation

I started this blogpost, including its title, with a pretty firm thesis in my mind. All I needed was the facts to support my view.

In some recent blogposts I have brought you photos of:

St Matthew's Brixton

and its twin St Jude's

St Mary and St John the Divine Balham

St Paul's Herne Hill

St Mary's Battersea

and St Martin's Ashton-upon-Mersey

The thesis was broadly:

The system of listing buildings as being historically or architecturally significant is heavily biased towards stately homes and churches, and, in general ignores the history of ordinary, non-Establishment people.

I did some research - reading various articles on the internet - and realised that my thesis was at best a blunderbuss approach. It turns out that my problem isn't the principle of Listing buildings. English Heritage explains it: 

   All buildings built before 1700 which survive in anything like their original condition are listed, as are most of those built between 1700 and 1840. The criteria become tighter with time, so that post-1945 buildings have to be exceptionally important to be listed. A building has normally to be over 30 years old to be eligible for listing.

I don't think anyone could argue with the fundamentals of that.

Wikipedia says  

It was the damage to buildings caused by German bombing during World War II that prompted the first listing of buildings that were deemed to be of particular architectural merit...The listings were used as a means of determining whether a particular building should be rebuilt if it was damaged by bombing, with varying degrees of success.

Again, how can this be contentious, at least at a strategic level? 

So, it seems I was putting the cart before the horse. I was irritated at the high number of churches (and stately homes) that were regarded as 'historic', whereas I ought to have observed: a large number of buildings that have survived from before 1700 or the 19th century to Second World War or present day, are churches. This proves that many churches are old.

Listed buildings account for about 2% of English building stock. In March 2010, there were approximately 374,000 list entries of which 92% were Grade II, 5.5% were Grade II*, and 2.5% were Grade I. Places of worship play an important role in the UK’s architectural heritage. England alone has 14,500 listed places of worship (4,000 Grade I, 4,500 Grade II* and 6,000 Grade II). In fact, 45% of all Grade I listed buildings are places of worship.

Wikipedia, again.

My irritation was fuelled by the lazy complacency of some small parish churches. They have no real significance beyond their parish or county but they trumpet their current importance by reference to their Listed Building status. Which in most cases only means 'the church is old'.

I would be relaxed about this if they used this merely as a starting point for telling the story of the community that grew up around the church. Or if they acknowledged the circumstances in which they were built - eg by Government, to suppress possible revolution from amongst the working people: the Commissioners' or Waterloo churches. 

St James's Bermondsey boasts:

In 1724 at the Bishop's Visitation, it was recorded "In Bermondsey there are 9,000 people". The only houses were along Bermondsey Wall, which was part of the only road or highway from the City out into Kent. Here wealthy merchants had magnificent houses. The first streets in our Parish were Salisbury Street and Janeway Street. Here a rich West India Merchant built a house and called it Jamaica House, after the island from which his fortune was derived. By 1710 there were enough poor people living here for it to be necessary to provide a workhouse for 50 people.

The Church now built was dedicated to St James but everyone called it Bermondsey New Church. Its grandeur recalling the days when wealthy merchants still lived in Grange Road and Jamaica Road.

That makes me almost vomit with disgust. The West India Merchant 'derived his fortune from Jamaica'. This really is obscene. Unforgivable.

Conversely, the Reverend Arthur J Dobb wrote about St Philip's Salford

Although fine words were spoken about the need for some spiritual, restraint of the working classes to their indulgent practices of gambling lounging, drinking and debauchery, nothing was done to provided churches in the slums until, under a Parliamentary Act of 1818, £1 million was granted to build new churches "lest a godless people might also be a revolutionary people". As less emotive reason for building these churches, they were to be the nation's token of Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the victory at Waterloo, hence they are sometimes known as "Waterloo Churches". The overall intentions may have seemed worthy, yet the monies were mainly spent in the middle-class suburbs and did little to alleviate the acute distress and harsh repression which manifested themselves in such demonstrations as "Peterloo".

Could the money have been better spent on providing an education for poor people? Could that have reduced their indulgent practices? Or would it have caused them to think for themselves, question the repression of the masters, and organise to change society?

Some years ago I read - almost certainly in Alan Piper's History of Brixton - about how the property developers built houses and then built churches, not so that the people could go and worship, but as an ostentatious display of their wealth and piety. (I paraphrase significantly). The churches built were generally Anglican but, again according to Wikipedia, The religious census of 1851 revealed that total Nonconformist attendance was very close to that of Anglicans. Additionally, there were Catholics, Jews and people of no religious practice. The churches were not democratic.

I like looking round churches. Some display attractive art. Some tell part of a story of humanity. Churches, organised religion and ritual are of immense sociological fascination. But if they trumpet their assumed historical importance, they must tell the whole story, not just the Government/Establishment propaganda. Otherwise, they are historically irrelevant. Or worse - celebrating that their church was there to celebrate the vast fortunes that were made from slavery. 

I have been critical. There will be more photos of more churches. And perhaps more criticism. St James's Bermondsey, I have my sights set on you. 

 

Also, recently, but not yet blogged, I have visited Nonsuch Park and Nunhead Cemetery, and I have watched a TV programme about the Lost Gardens of Heligan, which all tell a different story of what happens when architecture and heritage is neglected and abandoned.

So, I have no desire to knock down the churches I have visited or walked past. Just to take St Matthew's in Brixton. Its congregation is much smaller than many of the Evangelical/Pentecostal churches and the many local mosques. Together their numbers are eclipsed by the vast majority of the population that seldom if ever attends a place of worship. It is clearly in dire financial straits and, to be honest, it serves little or no purpose in the community.

Would it be missed? I don't know. As a functioning church, probably not. As a building, probably, at least for a while. But as a space? Without a doubt.

Look again at the pictures of Brixton around St Matthew's. Or go there yourself physically. Or go to your own town or village centre. Imagine the church knocked down and the space, including its churchyard, built over and used for a secondhand car showroom, a supermarket or 'luxury apartments'. I can't stand that thought. At the very least, the old churches provide a respite and a breathing space. But I wish they would tell the truth about their history, the whole truth about their community. Then they would truly be a community asset, not just an ignored artefact.

We need and want to retain these buildings as churches or with alternative uses. They come to dominate our collective idea of what is 'historic' and 'important'. Churches were maintained for functional reasons more than ordinary homes and places of work and play, so our historical sense of ordinary people is dominated by churches. St James's Bermondsey demonstrate, they may not be fit and proper custodians of our history.