150 years
Since 1870 St Luke’s has had the privilege of making its home in Kentish Town (or “New Kentish Town” as it was called once). We celebrated 150 years in 2020. Here’s some of the story of our building and how we found our spot on Oseney Crescent.
Special thanks to genealogist, writer and historical researcher Emma Jolly for all of her research and support, which is excerpted below.
With the 19th century’s rapid population growth, new parishes and new railroads were necessary for the new influx of Londoners. In the 1840s, “the notable St Pancras vicar”, the Rev. Thomas Dale determined to build more churches in the area. In 1849, the new parish of St Luke’s, Kings Cross was created. Its congregation in Pancras Road at the St Pancras Vestry Hall.
Area in red for new railroads with mark for St Luke’s current location.
Image: Map of London, 1868, compiled & engraved by Edward Weller, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
St Luke’s had been built on the site of the planned St Pancras Station. As building began, the church was taken down and re-erected in Grove Road, Wanstead. Meanwhile, the Midland Railway had paid St Luke’s compensation of £12,500 for the loss of their site. This payment was used to build the new church in Oseney Crescent on the Christ Church Estate, St Pancras.
St Pancras replaced where the first St Luke’s was initially built (The interior of the Barlow train shed, circa 1870)
“According to a letter from John Johnson, published in The Builder, 27th June, 1868, it was intended that he should be the architect of the new building, but
(1842–1935) to design the church. This was his first important work; his best-known building is the John Rylands Memorial Library, Manchester.”
London Evening Standard, 28 November 1868, p. 3
St Luke’s Church, New Kentish Town from an article in The Builder, 3 September 1870, p. 707
The Holborn Journal reported:
This new church, situate in Oseney-crescent, Kentish-town, being rapidly proceeded with, and are expected to be ready for consecration in a month or two.
…
The vicarage, also by Champneys was an interesting and unusual example of domestic architecture for its period.
Holborn Journal, 18 September 1869, p. 2
On 4 December 1869, The Globe reported,
“The Bishop of London this morning consecrated a new church, dedicated to St. Luke, at Kentish Town. The church has been erected the Midland Railway Company in lieu of that which previously stood near King’s Cross, and which was removed for the purposes of their Metropolitan station. The Bishop was received by the local clergy. The consecration service was performed by the Bishop, who also preached. ”
“The Rev. C. H. Andrews will be the incumbent of the new church and district.”
Consecration fees for Saint Luke’s, New Kentish Town
The Builder, 3 September 1870
With the building complete and consecrated, The Builder once again wrote a feature on St Luke’s.
In 1870, Henry Hugh Pike, a landlord and builder who styled himself as a ‘barrister at law’, wrote to, “the Kentish and Camden Towns Gazette, on the ‘height’ of the service held at the new St Luke’s church in Oseney Crescent on the Christ Church Estate:
‘Sir: AS a parishioner, I neither like the outside of this building nor what is going on within it. To my mind both appear to me un-English and foreign to its church . . .’
The letter was answered the following week by an extremely snappish one from ‘A Churchman’, who claimed that until Mr Pike’s style improved:
‘He may fairly be deemed to be outside the pale of gentlemanly controversy’.
Another reader wrote in to point out that, living as he did on the north side of Leighton Road, Pike was not in St Luke’s parish anyway. The argument about the services, however, continued for weeks.”
Mr Pike, we have received your feedback, and you will be glad to know that the gaslights have indeed been removed; however, please be advised that we are now a fully electric church.
Between 1880-1890, the aisle windows of the twelve apostles were produced by Heaton, Butler and Bayne and in 1891, the west window.
In March 1892, Annie Besant was due to give a talk on theosophy at St Luke's, but it proved too controversial and the church was obliged to ask her to cancel:
Several of his parishioners having objected to the proposed lecture by Mrs. Besant on ‘Theosophy.’ which was to have been given to Friday evening, the Vicar of St. Luke’s, Kentish Town, has asked Mrs. Besant to cancel the engagement. But the other lectures in the Parish Room which have been arranged will take place.”
– York Herald, 16 March 1892, p. 4
The organist of St Luke’s was the English composer, Charles King Hall (known as King Hall; 1845-1895). He wrote secular music, such as sentimental ballads, as well as church anthems. He had married Isabel Maud Penton (1852-1932) in 1876 at All Saints, Gordon Square and they had five children. King Hall arranged works by composers, including Mendelssohn, for piano and voice. He also performed in London theatre and worked as a consultant to Chappell & Co, the theatre music publishers. His father had played in the Drury Lane Theatre orchestra and his mother came from a family of actors.
On 6 September 1890, the Essex Standard reported that, “On Monday evening, Sept. 1, an organ recital was given in the Parish Church by Mr. O. King Hall, organist of St. Luke's, Kentish Town, and Royal Albert Hall The selections were rendered in a style which proved Mr. King to be a thorough master . . .”
In 1894, a new vicar, Frank Albert Elliot, was appointed.
On 25 December 1897, the Sussex Agricultural Express reported on St Luke's own football team, St. Luke's (Kentish Town) Football Club (affiliated to the London Football Association):
“The St. Luke's (Kentish Town) Football Club (affiliated to the London Football Association, &*.), Alliance team (medium), are in want of matches the London Football Association was created on 2nd February 1882 to cater for club football in the capital.”
It was described in ‘The Football Annual’ yearbook published by the F.A. in 1882:
“In London an Association has been formed for the management of solely metropolitan affairs in affiliation to the parent society, and there is every appearance that it will soon rank as the most influential English Association.”
“Looking back on Kentish Town in the 1890s, . . . people were brutal and pugnacious, compared to London in the 1940s.”
– Jerry White, London in the 19th Century (Vintage Books, 2011, p. 127)
Social & economic map of the St Luke’s parish through Victorian eyes
Source: Charles Booth Archive Map
On 14 January 1905, Globe, page 4 reported, “The vicar of St. Luke's, Kentish Town, the Rev. A. F. S. Elliot, has announced in his Parish Magazine that in future the church bell will be rung three times at . . . the celebration of Holy Communion.” However, the beam proved unsuitable for the bell, which cannot be rung anymore.
Present day bell tower
In the Finsbury-park Cup Competition, St Luke’s did well against W. Hill & Sons.
Earlier in 1902, dubbing itself the “St Luke’s Institute” with the the vicar himself as president, the cricketers finished “second in Division II of the Gospel Oak League instead of sixth as last season” as reported in the Islington Gazette (1 October 1902).
On 23 April 1908, the Islington Gazette reported,
“ST. LUKE’S, KENTISH TOWN, SUNDAY SCHOOL. Easter Entertainment. The eleventh annual Easter entertainment given by the boys St. Luke’s (Kentish Town) Sunday School attracted fairly numerous audience to the Drovers'-ball, North-road, last evening.
“…the various characters being played by the boys, whose histronic and vocal ability was recognised by frequent and appreciative applause.”
In 1910 and 1914, Morris & Co. produced four more stained glass windows for the south clerestory [the upper part of the nave, choir, and transepts of a large church, containing a series of windows]. Two were taken from figures by Edward Burne-Jones and two by John Henry Dearle. The central circular window depicts the Six Days of Creation, derived from Burne-Jones’s design for Waltham Abbey.
In 1912, a wall plaque was placed on the wall of the church in honour of Louisa Maria (Swan) Pringle. She was 79 years of age. The date on the plaque is 1 Nov 1912. An electric light in the chancel was also installed in her memory by her two sons, John Thomas Pringle and Thomas Robert Pringle. Louisa Maria Pringle was from Gillingham in Kent. A year before she died, the census recorded her living with her 51 year old son, John Thomas Pringle, and 21 year old servant, Florence Bodden, at 15 Croftdown Road, near Highgate Road. She was a widow.
Britain entered the Great War on 4 August 1914. The war would have a major impact on the lives of the congregation of St Luke’s, as well as others who were in some way connected to the church and parish. After the war, a memorial roll to the dead was installed at neighbouring church, St Paul, Camden Square.
Mounted on the wall inside the church is St Luke’s Roll of the First World War. The memorial commemorates World War I with a gilded inscription on the front and names of those of the parish who died listed within the plaque. The board was installed after 1918 at the parish church of St Paul, Camden Square, but was probably relocated to the present church when the parishes were amalgamated in 1956. Information of two servicemen are remembered below:
Died 16 August 1917
Date of Birth: 1894
Place of Birth: Highgate, London
Leslie was a son of Albert G. and Alice Maud Boughton of 1 Hilldrop Crescent, Holloway, London. He had 5 siblings, 1 of whom had died by 1911. In 1901 the census shows the family living at 22 Monnery Road, Upper Holloway, his father’s occupation was “Clothier’s Salesman”. In 1911 the family were living at 15 Lincoln Road, East Finchley and 16 year old Leslie was working as a Jeweller’s Bookkeeper. His father was a Tailor’s Shop Assistant.
Place of Death: West-Vlaanderen, Belgium
Place of Burial: Tyne Cot Cemetery (IV. G. 20.)
Commemorated: “ONE OF THE BEST GOD COULD SEND SPLENDID MEMORY LEFT BEHIND MOTHER”
Died Saturday, October 28, 1916
Date of Birth: 1896
Place of Birth: Kentish Town, London
Fred William was a son of Fred and Ellen Warrington, of 384, York Road, Holloway, London. He had 5 siblings, none of whom had died by 1911. In 1901 the census shows the family living at 87 Toronto Road, Chadwell St Mary in Essex, his father’s occupation was “Dock Labourer”. In 1911 the family were living at 53 Hampden Road in Grays, Essex and 14 year old Fred William’s occupation was described as “works paper mills (Purfleet)”. His father was a Dock Labourer.
Place of Death: Somme, France
Place of Burial: No Known Grave
Commemorated: THIEPVAL MEMORIAL; Pier and Face 12 D and 13 B.
On 12 May 1932 on page 4 of the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer: “ . . . approved the appointment the Rev. Thomas Glaisyer, chaplain His Majesty’s Prison, Leeds, since 1929, the vicarage St. Luke, New Kentish Town, London. The Rev, Percy SoAverhy was last night instituted to the of St. (Mark’s. Manningham, by the Bishop Bradford.”
In 1938, another new vicar - Arthur George Moore - was appointed.
During the Second World War, Kentish Town suffered heavy bombing. This led to injury, loss of life, and the damage or destruction of many homes. Local schools were evacuated to the countryside. Some were sent to Northamptonshire. Among the evacuees were members of the current congregation of St Luke’s.
After the war, buildings had to be demolished and poverty was rife across the area. Many were homeless or lived in derelict housing. Rebuilding took place. John Richardson writes:
“Unfortunately much of it was built in the cheap and designed at a time when architectural style was at a very low ebb. It would be difficult to think of many buildings in Camden of this post-war period, domestic, commercial or public, that one would want to retain . . . Inevitably, Labour-run St Pancras built most housing. . . . In 1942 blocks around Clarence Way were finished, which included the 1000th flat the Council had built since 1945. In 1955 the Council bought the Christ Church estate in Kentish Town, then in disrepair, and went on to improve rather than demolish . . . The councillors and officers of that era had seen the improvements in living conditions and public health that came from new housing estates, particularly those of the pre-war LCC, and at that time the creation of estates seemed the way forward.”
After the war, St Luke received a brass eagle lectern (dating from 1882) from St Paul, Camden Square, which had been severely damaged during the Second World War.
In 1947, a new vicar, Frank Hasell Smye, was appointed to St Luke’s.
Fred Titmus in 1962
On 5 February 1955, the (later famous England) cricketer, Fred Titmus, the 22-year-old Middlesex cricketer, married his childhood sweetheart. Jean Marriott. 20, at St. Luke's Church, Kentish Town.
The People, 6 February 1955, p. 7
In September 1955, the benefice of Saint Luke was united to the benefice of Saint Paul, Camden Square, Saint Pancras. Saint Paul ceased to be the parish church but was retained as a chapel of ease. This arrangement lasted until 1987.
In April 1987, the united parish was dissolved and the separate parishes recreated. The building closed in 1991 and was handed over to the Churches Conservation Trust.
1998-99 architectural drawings of St Luke’s
St Luke’s found its doors open again when Holy Trinity, Brompton planted a new congregation. An initial carols service was held—the first service in twenty years—on 18 December 2011. Renovations finished that January, and services were regularly held from 29 January 2012.
Jonathan March was installed as St Luke’s first new incumbent in nearly two decades.
We love our building and are continuing to care for it. As these 150 years have gone by, we have realised our need to give the home of our St Luke’s family a bit of attention to keep it standing. We are so privileged to call this little spot of Kentish Town ours and hope to keep welcoming everyone through its doors for another 150 years.
New chairs in 2018 kicked off our building works. 2019 saw scaffolding go up, and in 2020 it came down to reveal ceiling repairs and repainting. If you’d like to help support our continued care and renovation of the building, you can find out how below:
Carols 2019 amongst the scaffold
