Archiwum

St Barnabas Church

Dodane przez: will, 4 September 2015

In the 1890s, when most of our streets were being developed, it was usual to plan for a church in each new neighbourhood. Henry Casey, owner of much of the local building land, gave the plot for this purpose. Planning began in 1899 – Richard Foster, a rich City merchant, paid not only for the church, but for the vicarage and the hall that is now named after him.

But it was in St Barnabas Road – then called Stafford Road – that the church had its origins. At 44 Stafford Road lived Elizabeth Tracey, her husband and children. And it was Mrs Tracey who, from 1895, began to hold a Sunday School for local children in her house.

Soon the congregation became too many to fit into Mrs Tracey’s front room, and it was going to take many months to complete the new church. So a second hand, iron “pre-fab” church was bought for £40, and services were held there.

And the church Richard Foster built was worth waiting for. It was not complete until 1903, and is built on a grand scale, employing some of the best designers and craftspeople of the time. Foster’s taste was for the formal, elaborate, “high church” form of services, and the church building is a very impressive setting for these. Foster’s generosity also ran to stained glass windows, textiles and an organ.

Some people did not approve of this kind of service, and occasionally there was trouble over this – on one occasion a local resident complained because he had attended a service and found candles on the altar and the clergy wearing coloured stoles.

Queen’s Road

Dodane przez: webmaster, 15 July 2015

The Burial Board bought the land to make Queen’s Road at the same time as buying the ground for Queen’s Road Cemetery. Mr Innes sold the two plots for £5,000 including the standing timber. This was only the land to make the eastern section of the road.

It was decided to make the road surface of gravel – a relatively cheap option. All was ready for the opening day of the cemetery in October 1872. At this early stage Queen’s Road was a private road, intended only for use by funeral traffic.

This was to change over the next twenty years. By the time of the 1881 census there were fifteen households listed in Queen’s Road. Ten years later there were 122.

And ten years after that, in 1901, Queen’s Road West, running between the cemetery and Markhouse Road, had been added. By this time there had been yet another change – about half of the houses in the road were being used as shops. With the development of the surrounding streets, Queen’s Road had become a local shopping street, offering everything from coal merchants to bakers to a piano tuner and a cheesemonger. There was a coffee house at number 19, and a doctor living at number 75.

Queen’s Road’s life as a high street was to continue for over 70 years.

27 Chelmsford Road

Dodane przez: webmaster, 15 July 2015

Stephen and Alex look as if they are about nine and seven years old, so the photograph was probably taken in around 1908. They are dressed alike in woollen suits, shirts with wide collars, narrow ties, and heavy boots. These were the kind of clothes (link to clothes and fashion page) worn by most boys of their age. The only unusual thing about them is that they are not wearing hats – most people did not go far out of doors without a head covering of some kind, so they are probably not going far. Perhaps they have come outside just to be photographed.

The house looks tidy and well kept, with iron railings and a carefully trimmed privet hedge in the front garden. It has the box sash windows that were usual at the time, with wooden venetian blinds half lowered and, behind them, heavy lace curtains. The front doorway is in shadow, so it’s not possible to see whether the house door is open or shut – or any details of what is inside the house (link to houses page). We do know, though, that the house had a front room, which was probably known as the parlour and kept for best. In many families the parlour was kept locked and was out of bounds to children. Behind this was the kitchen, behind that the scullery, which had a door to the back garden and outside lavatory. Upstairs there were three bedrooms. Most local houses were still built without a bathroom.

In the foreground of the photograph there is a gas street light. These had to be light every night by a lamplighter who came round with a ladder.