Kingsbury: Protestant nonconformity

A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 5, Hendon, Kingsbury, Great Stanmore, Little Stanmore, Edmonton Enfield, Monken Hadley, South Mimms, Tottenham. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1976.

This free content was digitised by double rekeying. All rights reserved.

'Kingsbury: Protestant nonconformity', in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 5, Hendon, Kingsbury, Great Stanmore, Little Stanmore, Edmonton Enfield, Monken Hadley, South Mimms, Tottenham, (London, 1976) pp. 86-87. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol5/pp86-87 [accessed 25 March 2024]

PROTESTANT NONCONFORMITY.

A single nonconformist was noted in 1676. (fn. 1) Dissenters, led by their minister, William Foxwell, obtained licences for worship in several private houses at the Hyde in 1803 and 1804. (fn. 2) They were probably Baptists and may have been connected with a short-lived chapel in the Hendon part of the Hyde, founded in 1843. (fn. 3)

It is more likely, however, that some of the dissenters of 1804 (fn. 4) joined the Congregationalists who licensed one of Elizabeth King's houses on the Kingsbury side of the Hyde in 1818. (fn. 5) The meetingplace apparently moved to the Hendon part in 1836 (fn. 6) but had returned to Kingsbury by 1851, when it was held in Henry Billing's house in Edgware Road, just north of the King's Arms. A minister had average congregations of 20 'mixed Christians' at the two Sunday services. (fn. 7) A Congregational chapel in Edgware Road, south of the King's Arms, was registered in 1860 (fn. 8) and conveyed to church members as trustees in 1878. By 1912 the chapel was 'practically at an end' and in 1913 the trusteeship was vested in the London Congregational Union (Incorporated), in order that the building could be used as a mission hall by Cricklewood Congregational church. A new Congregational church was opened in 1933 on the Hendon side of Edgware Road and the old chapel was sold to the Salvation Army, which used it until 1935 when the licence to worship was cancelled. (fn. 9)

Kingsbury Free church was built in 1931 for Baptists (fn. 10) who had been meeting in a builder's hut. It is a brick building with timber and plaster decoration, at the junction of Slough Lane and Salmon Street. A church hall was erected next to the church in the 1930s. (fn. 11)

Methodists met on the new Queensbury estate in 1935 and in 1936 an empty shop near Queensbury station was opened for temporary use as a Sunday school and for worship. A brick church, designed by H. R. Houchin in a cinema-modernistic style, was opened in Beverley Drive in 1938. A new church hall was added in 1958. (fn. 12)

There was a gospel hall in Bacon Lane in 1936 (fn. 13) and Roe Green hall in Princes Avenue was registered for undenominational worship in 1937 by members of Woodcroft Evangelical church. (fn. 14)

In 1937 meetings were held by the Protestant Apostolic Church in Oakleigh Avenue, (fn. 15) at a mission hall which was registered in 1939. (fn. 16)

Footnotes

  • 1. William Salt Libr., Stafford, Salt MS. 33, p. 40.
  • 2. Guildhall MS. 9580/2; G.R.O. Worship Returns, Lond. dioc. nos. 584, 608. The application for Foxwell's house in 1803 gives it as in Hendon and the denomination as Baptists.
  • 3. See p. 40.
  • 4. e.g. James Reopath or Redpath appears in both certs.
  • 5. Guildhall MS. 9580/2; G.R.O. Worship Returns, Lond. dioc. no. 1073. For Elizabeth King's houses, see M.R.O., Acc. 262/30.
  • 6. See p. 39.
  • 7. H.O. 107/1700/135/2 ff. 310-28; H.O. 129/135/2/4 /6.
  • 8. G.R.O. Worship Reg. no. 9385; O.S. Map 1/2,500, Mdx. XI. 6 (1873 edn.).
  • 9. G.R.O. Worship Reg. no. 9385; Char. Com. file 89916; see p. 41.
  • 10. G.R.O. Worship Reg. no. 53464.
  • 11. Ex inf. the sec. (1969).
  • 12. Material supplied by Queensbury Meth. ch.; G.R.O. Worship Reg. no. 58015.
  • 13. Char. Com. file 119315.
  • 14. G.R.O. Worship Reg. no. 57127; ex. inf. Mr. J. A. Gardiner (1969).
  • 15. Kelly's Dir. Wembley (1937).
  • 16. G.R.O. Worship Reg. no. 58778.