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St Michael's Church, Grove Park

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St Michael's Church, Grove Park
St Michael's Church, Elmwood Road, completed in 1909
Map
51°29′15″N 0°16′17″W / 51.4875°N 0.2714°W / 51.4875; -0.2714
LocationElmwood Road,
Chiswick, London
CountryUnited Kingdom
DenominationChurch of England
Websitehttps://www.stmichaelschiswick.org/
History
StatusParish church
Founded1908
Consecrated1909
Architecture
Functional statusActive
Designated1908
Architect(s)W. D. Caröe
Herbert Passmore
Specifications
MaterialsBrick with stone dressings
Administration
DioceseLondon
ArchdeaconryMiddlesex
DeaneryHounslow
ParishGrove Park
Clergy
Vicar(s)Martine Oborne[1]
Listed Building – Grade II
Designated10 June 1985
Reference no.1240805

St Michael's Church, Grove Park (also called St Michael's, Sutton Court[2] and St Michael's, Chiswick) is an Anglican church in the Grove Park district of Chiswick, opened in 1909. Its red brick architecture by W. D. Caröe & Herbert Passmore has been praised by Nikolaus Pevsner.

Architecture

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St Michael's Church on Elmwood Road in the Sutton Court area of Grove Park, Chiswick, was designed in the Arts and Crafts style[3] by the architects W. D. Caröe & Herbert Passmore; it was founded in 1908 and completed in 1909.[4][5] It is described by Nikolaus Pevsner in The Buildings of England as "one of Caröe's most interesting churches in outer London".[5] The "picturesque"[5] building is in red brick, its buttresses joined by tiled arches, and with dormers in the roof. The crossing-point of the roof is marked by a turret with shingles and tiles; on the north of the crossing is "a curiously domestic excrescence"[5] for ventilation and the church's belfry. The windows have decorative curving stone tracery in "free flamboyant Gothic" style;[5] they are recessed under tiled arches. Inside, the font, lectern, and pulpit were brought from St Michael on the Strand, while the 1911 choir stalls were designed by Caröe. The south chapel's roof has a decoration made by Antony Lloyd in 1932. The stained glass windows in the south chapel and the sanctuary were made by Horace Wilkinson between 1914 and 1925.[5][6]

The historian Jennifer Freeman writes of the building that "the emphasis externally is on the craftwork, on careful stone dressings, on subtle variations in the tilework, on the timbering, brickwork and leadwork",[7][8] while it fits into its environment sensitively, in a place "still leafy enough to evoke the setting of a simple country church. Yet the building is a highly complex composition of red brick and tile".[7][8] The St Michael's church architect Patrick Crawford comments that the most remarkable feature of the church is its tiled arches.[7]

  • Elmwood Road front, showing some of the unusual shallow tiled arches
    Elmwood Road front, showing some of the unusual shallow tiled arches
  • Architectural detail
    Architectural detail
  • Western end, facing Sutton Lane South
    Western end, facing Sutton Lane South
  • Foundation stone, laid by Lord Kinnaird, 19 December 1908
    Foundation stone, laid by Lord Kinnaird, 19 December 1908
  • The garden side of the church
    The garden side of the church

History

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The building was funded by the sale of St Michael, Burleigh Street,[a] on the Strand, in central London, raising the sum of £20,500.[5] The old church was demolished and replaced by the Strand Palace Hotel. The vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, near the Strand, became the patron of the new church. The new church cost £8,000 to build, including its site; the vicarage cost a further £1,800. A tin-roofed wooden church hall was built at a cost of £360; it was replaced in 1998 by a brick-built parish centre.[7]

The church was the last of the Anglican parishes of Chiswick to be created, serving the new population of the Grove Park area west of Sutton Court Road, which had consisted up until the 1900s mainly of orchards and market gardens. The parish area was taken from the western part of the parish of St Nicholas, Chiswick.[7]

The church has been Grade II listed since 1985.[9]

Notes

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  1. ^ For a drawing of St Michael, Burleigh Street, see Figure 40 in British History Online's Southampton Street and Tavistock Street Area: Burleigh Street, pp 223–225.

References

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  1. ^ "Our Leadership Team". Retrieved 14 January 2023.
  2. ^ Baker 1982, pp. 90–93.
  3. ^ "St Michael's Celebrates Centenary". Chiswick W4. 17 December 2009. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
  4. ^ Clegg 1995, p. 104.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Cherry & Pevsner 1991, p. 394
  6. ^ "HoC - Research Exhibits - Commemorative Booklet - 'Te Deum' East Window". St Michaels Chiswick. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
  7. ^ a b c d e Peacock, Ian (2010). "The History of St Michael's, Sutton Court". Brentford and Chiswick Local History Society. Archived from the original on 24 September 2020. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
  8. ^ a b Peacock cites Freeman's book for these quotations. Freeman, Jennifer (1990). W.D. Caröe, RStO, FSA: his architectural achievement. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-2449-8. OCLC 21974399.
  9. ^ Historic England. "Church of St Michael, Non Civil Parish (1240805)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 30 August 2021.

Sources

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