St Michael and All Angels, Bedford Park
St Michael and All Angels is an Anglican church in Bedford Park, Chiswick, designed by the architect Norman Shaw, who built some of the houses in that area. The church was consecrated in 1880. It is constructed in what has been described both as Queen Anne revival style and as Perpendicular Gothic style modified with English domestic features.
Construction
St Michael and All Angels began as a temporary building on Chiswick High Road opposite Chiswick Lane, some distance from its present site, in 1876. The present church at the corner of Turnham Green Terrace and Bath Road, near Turnham Green tube station, was designed by the architect Norman Shaw. He was the Estate Architect for Bedford Park, designing some of its earliest houses in red brick and white-painted woodwork, known as Queen Anne revival style.[1] Although this style was considered novel but particularly ecclesiastical by the architect G. E. Street at the time,[2] Shaw decided to use a similar style for the church.[1] The red bricks, as used for Bedford Park houses, were made locally. The architectural writer James Stevens Curl describes the style as "Perpendicular Gothic with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century domestic features".[2][3] He also notes that the wooden features of the church were originally painted pale green.[4] The foundation stone was laid on 31 May 1879. The church was consecrated on 17 April 1880. A churchwarden, the brewer Henry Smith of Chiswick's Fuller Smith & Turner objected in writing to the Bishop of London, raising controversy about the high Anglo-Catholic form of service used in the church. The poet and writer on English architecture John Betjeman called it "a very lovely church and a fine example of Norman Shaw's work."[1] In 1887 Shaw's vision for an additional North aisle was realised.[2]
Restoration
The church's roof and stained glass windows were seriously damaged by a Second World War bomb which destroyed the nearby Chiswick Polytechnic. The East Window was filled with new stained glass by Lawrence Lee in 1952. The church's exterior and roof were restored in 1980.[1] In 2013 the bishop of London celebrated the completion of a 5-year project to replace the church organ. The new organ, which has 1667 pipes and 25 stops, was made by the Swiss company La Manufacture d’ Orgues St Martin.[5]
References
- 1 2 3 4 "A brief history of the Church". St Michael & All Angels. Retrieved 19 November 2015. This is based on Broom, Michael. The Birth of A Parish - The Creation of St Michael & All Angels, Bedford Park. St Michael & All Angels.
- 1 2 3 "Richard Norman Shaw: Churches". Victorian Web. Retrieved 19 November 2015.
- ↑ Curl, James Stevens (1990). Victorian Architecture. David & Charles. cited by Victorian Web.
- ↑ Curl, James Stevens (1995). Victorian Churches (English Heritage). Batsford. p. 105. ISBN 9780713474916.
- ↑ "Bishop of London celebrates new organ at St Michael and All Angels, Bedford Park". Chiswick Herald. 27 September 2013. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
External links
Coordinates: 51°29′46″N 0°15′17″W / 51.4961°N 0.2548°W
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