PROTESTANT NONCONFORMITY.
Stanmore
was included in a list of parishes where a meeting-house is said to have been licensed between 1689
and 1719. (fn. 57) A house was certified as a meeting-place
by Samuel Gadsden in 1826, but no denomination
was recorded, and William Coughtrey certified a
building for Independents in 1833. Neither place
was used for long by worshippers, nor was a room
in a house on Stanmore Hill, certified by James John
Foster of Edgware, a dissenting teacher, in 1850. (fn. 58)
Primitive Methodists registered a preaching room in
1882 but the registration was cancelled in 1896. (fn. 59)
The registration by Baptists of a meeting room in
Church Road in 1889 was cancelled in 1954. (fn. 60)
In the early 1930s weekly lunch-time meetings
were held for workmen employed by Henry J. Clare,
who was building houses in Abercorn Road, Belmont
Lane, and Old Church Lane. The meetings, although
Baptist in character, were undenominational and
took place in the Old Barn, a brick building once
part of Old Church Farm and later converted to
residential use as part of Stanburn House, no. 69
Old Church Lane. When the new houses were
occupied, Sunday services were started in the Old
Barn. (fn. 61) Stanmore Baptist church was registered in
1934 and the foundation-stone of the existing
church, on the corner of Abercorn Road and Old
Church Lane, was laid in 1935. The new building, of
pale brown brick and including a small hall, classrooms, and vestry, was registered in 1936. The church
was enlarged to seat 270 people in 1963, when a
bigger hall, with classrooms overhead, and new rooms
along the Abercorn Road frontage were also added. (fn. 62)
Stanmore chapel, which is affiliated with the
Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches,
was founded in 1932 as an independent Baptist
church. Services were held in the Old Barn until
1935 and at no. 1 Abercorn Road for a further two
years. The title of Stanmore Baptist church was
adopted in 1934 but the original name had been
revived by 1937, to avoid confusion with the church
in Old Church Lane, which is a member of the
Baptist Union. The existing chapel, on the corner of
Marsh Lane at the junction with Nelson Road, was
opened in 1937 and registered in 1938 and again in
1941. The building, of red brick, has seating for 150
and adjoins a hall, built later with seating for 200. (fn. 63)
Stanmore free church was registered in 1936,
although evangelical services had been held for
several years in private houses. (fn. 64) It is a brown roughcast building, set back from the north side of Church
Road and east of the post office. After meeting in
private houses Brethren registered Culver Grove
gospel hall, on the corner of Crowshott Avenue and
Culver Grove, in 1938. (fn. 65) The building, which has
about 200 seats, is of red brick and is attached to a
second hall.