Christchurch History
Brockham Christchurch
History of Brockham
Christchurch
In 1845, Henry Goulburn, Barrister and
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, died aged 30. He had long
desired to erect a church on Brockham Green and his friends decided
to complete his plan in his memory.
The site was given by Henry Thomas Hope, of Deepdene, who had
purchased the manor of Brockham from the Duke of Norfolk in 1838,
and the architect was Benjamin Ferry, a pupil of Pugin.The question
of using brick or flint or local stone was resolved when Sir
Benjamin Brodie of Broome Park, Betchworth, Surgeon to Queen
Victoria, offered local stone from his estate. Christ Church was
consecrated by the Bishop of Winchester in 1847 as a daughter
of St. Michael's Betchworth, the incumbent receiving a stipend of
about £70.
Original drawings for church - view from Middle
Street - note door is on South side of church - it was subsequently
decided to construct the door on the North side so that the
congregation could look across the Green to the North Downs when
leaving the church!
Unfortunately the perishable nature of the building stone soon
became apparent and by 1883 major repairs were needed and has been
an ongoing problem.
The interior is simple in design but of special note is the
beautiful reredos depicting the last supper. It is of English Oak,
carved in Munich and dedicated in 1886 in memory of the then
Vicar's daughter who died four months after marriage.
The memorial windows, dedicated to benefactors, have gradually
replaced the original plain glass, the most recent dated 1938 and
1939. The stone and carved oak pulpit (costing £34. 2s.0d) was
dedicated in August 1889.
In 1877, the parish became part of the diocese of Rochester and
in 1905 it was then transferred to the newly formed diocese of
Southwark.
Chuch in 1855
Consecration of the Church
The church was consecrated by the Bishop of
Winchester in 1847. At that time, Christ Church was a daughter
church of St. Michael's, Betchworth. By 1868, the Parish had become
a separate district for ecclesiastical purposes and the incumbent
was, by then, a Vicar.
Johnson Batchelar (1800-1890), was from a
family of builders and lived near the Church. He relates a story
about the church clock.
The clock had orginally belonged to Betchworth
Castle which Henry Thomas Hope bought and dismantled in 1834.
According to Gillett & Johnson who repaired the clock in 1900,
the movement was then about 100 years old. It had a history of
trouble and in 1848 £94 had to be collected for repairs and a new
bell. The service bell in use today was the hour bell of the first
clock and it was retained as a singing bell when the carillon was
installed in 1936. The present electric clock was provided by
public subscription in 1936 and its dials were re-gilded in
celebration of Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee.
The Reverend Alan Benjamin Cheales is one of
Brockham's most renowned personalities. He was read in on 8th May
1859 and stayed until 1892. He was actively involved in all Village
life, as was his family.
In Nov 1868, the Parish of Christ Church
Brockham became a separate District for Ecclesiastical purposes and
the incumbent, Rev A B Cheales, a Vicar.
In 1874, The organ had not been functioning
well due to its very dirty state and accumulated dust was
interfering with the proper speech of the pipes.
In January 1875 Messrs Walker undertook the
complete rebuilding of the organ for £160 and the work took three
months. Three years later the organ was in trouble due to damp.
As the increasing population of the Parish
required that the space occupied by the organ and vestry should be
given back to the sittings of the Church, a new organ chamber and
vestry were built by Batchelar of Betchworth. Hot Air Apparatus was
also installed at a total cost of £250.
The Parishes of Betchworth and Brockham became
part of the Diocese of Rochester in 1877.
By 1883, the church needed massive restoration,
particularly because of the defective condition of the exterior
stone, and much of the decayed quoin stones were replaced with Bath
stone. Repairs to the tower and buttresses cost £400 and the
restoration of the rest of the stone £600.
When the work had been completed the triangular
white marble memorial to Henry Goulburn was inserted into the front
of the north porch by his younger brother, Col Edward Goulburn.
In 1936, the octave of bells, tuned in the key
of B, was provided following the bequest by Sidney Michael Poland,
who died in April of that year. The largest weighs 7 cwt and
the total weight is 28 cwt. The bells are fixed stationary and are
operated by means of a hand clavier or keyboard, the keys of which
are connected to clappers inside the bells.
At the same time, £250 of the bequest was spent
on the lych gate, as willed by Mr Poland. Designed by Frederick
Hagyard, a local architect and was constructed in 1936/7, it
contains four tons of English oak and rests on a base of Cotswold
stone. Among the village craftsmen who worked on it were the names
Harry Risbridger, William Monnery, Edward Jordan and George
Cornwell. Built into the structure are Coins of the Realm for
that year.
Among old furnishings, "a beautiful and costly
Communion Table, a velvet altar cloth worked by herself and
Communion linen" were given by Miss Goulburn in 1860. On Christmas
Day 1875, the five daughters of Sir Benjamin Brodie of Brockham
Warren, presented kneeling cushions, worked by themselves, for use
at the Communion Table rail. The stone and delicately carved oak
pulpit, costing £34 2s, was dedicated at a special service on
August 23rd 1889 and the same year a brass and oak Communion rail
was fitted (£14 3s). Mr Kempe gave the stone cross above the porch
in 1890. The brass lectern is dated 1893 in memory of Henry
Bowman.
Since 1860 most of the plain glass has
gradually been replaced by colourful memorial windows. Opposite the
north entrance St. George and St. Michael appear in a window to the
memory of Leopold Seymour of Brockham Park (1904). Two other
windows on either side of the nave show Hope, Fortitude, Faith and
Charity and they are memorials to the parents of Mrs Seymour
(1890). Leopold Seymour's parents are commemorated in the two
windows at the end of the north transept (1883). Opposite is the
memorial of another resident of Brockham Park, Frances Gordon
(1905). In the west walls of the transepts are the windows of
George Drayson (1873), Mary Lang (1879), Ann Thomas (1886) and
Edith Poland (1924).
The most recent windows, over the altar (1938)
and in the north wall of the nave (1939), were provided through the
bequest of Sidney Poland.
The east window was specially designed for
Christ Church showing events in the life of Our Lord and
incorporating the figure of St. Michael, representing the Mother
Church of Betchworth. St. Francis and St. Christopher were chosen
for the nave window, as being most suitable for the children's
corner which was at that end of the church. Constant Gardener of
Beare Green, the talented artist who designed and made these lovely
windows, died in the 1939-45 War.
In 1905 Brockham became part of the newly
formed Diocese of Southwark. After the war, when the village was
included in the Urban District of Dorking, an attempt was made to
have the parish transferred to Guildford Diocese to make it easier
for Christ Church to join in the corporate church life of Dorking.
However, Southwark was not willing to lose one of its few country
parishes.
The nineteen thirties saw great improvements
inside the church. In 1931, not only had H. R. Kempe been
churchwarden for forty-two years, Lay Reader for sixteen years and
chairman of the Parish Council for thirty-five years, hut he was
about to celebrate his golden wedding.' To mark the occasion the
oak choir stalls were provided by public subscription and fit ted
in his honour. At the same time the priest's stall was presented in
memory of the Revd. A. E. Cooke, Vicar of Brockham 1921-1929. The
installation of electric light in 1934 commemorated the
twenty-eight strenuous years spent as G.P. by the much loved Dr
John Mills Thorne.
The Church comprises a sanctuary and chancel
with a nave to the west. To the north and south are transepts with
a choir vestry leading from the south transept and priest's vestry
on the north. There is a tower located between the chancel and
nave.
Born in Hampshire, Ferrey was a pupil and
biographer of Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. Pugin was Great
Britain's foremost architect and designer of the nineteenth
century, a man with extraordinary talent, verve and perspicacity. A
man who believed in himself, and harboured a passion for Gothic and
the Roman Catholic Church.
After a period on the Continent, under William
Wilkins, Ferrey set up his own architectural practice in London in
1834. This practice grew to prodigious size, and Ferrey became an
important establishment figure, for example being Hon. Secretary of
Architects' Committee for the Houses of Parliament. He was
Diocesian Architect for Bath and Wells, carrying out much
restoration work on the Cathedral at Wells. He also designed and
laid out parts of the town of Bournemouth. Ferrey's pupils included
his son, Benjamin Ferrey Jr, and the late Victorian architect John
Norton.
In London, his work includes several churches,
including All Saints Blackheath, and the more centrally located St
Stephen's, Rochester Row(1845-7) in Westminster.
He also designed Surrey churches at Shalford
1846, Kingswood 1848 and Esher 1853).
Church as it is today