Great Stanmore: Protestant nonconformity

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. 1) 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. 2) Primitive Methodists registered a preaching room in 1882 but the registration was cancelled in 1896. (fn. 3) The registration by Baptists of a meeting room in Church Road in 1889 was cancelled in 1954. (fn. 4)

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. 5) 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. 6)

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. 7)

Stanmore free church was registered in 1936, although evangelical services had been held for several years in private houses. (fn. 8) 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. 9) The building, which has about 200 seats, is of red brick and is attached to a second hall.