From chapel to ...?

The fate of Forest Gate's longest surviving, purpose-built, religious building hangs in the balance since a recent attempt by an evangelical church to take it over and restore it to its original purpose has been challenged locally, by campaigners objecting to its "change of use".

The building in question, in its most recent use

The building itself has an almost 200 year history - and is one of Forest Gate's oldest. It has certainly had the most varied range of uses during its existence, of any local landmark.

It is, of course, the rather innocuous-looking building which until recently hosted the Angel's restaurant, at 79 Woodgrange Road. The building was then empty for some months, during which period a local catering company, Pyramid Pizza, thought they had a lease on the premises - only to be gazumped by the evangelical church.

The church had its name board up for about a month and began meeting, earlier this summer, before the planning challenge was made. As the photo at the end of this article shows, it is currently without a facia board, pending an outcome of the planners' investigation.

The building was constructed in 1830.

Jabez Legg was a Stratford-based Congregationalist minister in the early years of the nineteenth century (see here for details of his life and the almshouses he supported, locally).  He took to preaching in a hut next to the old Eagle and Child pleasure gardens (later to become a pub), on what we now know as Woodgrange Road - previously Eagle and Child Lane - in the mid 1820's.

Jabez Legg, the congregationalist
 minister (1786 - 1867),
inspiration behind
the original chapel

He chose the location because the tearooms and pleasure gardens were something of a "resort" for day trippers, getting away from the hustle, bustle and filth of the streets of the inner East End - with Wanstead Flats on its doorstep. Thus, he was provided with something approaching a captive audience/congregation.

1851 sketch of the original Forest
 Gate, next to which Legg first
 began to preach in the area

Forest Gate was barely developed at this time and the tea gardens and preaching effectively operated in the middle of the countryside. The congregation, however, soon outgrew the hut, by the old Forest Gate, so Legg and William Strange, whose daughter ran the Sunday school attached to the church, raised funds for a purpose built chapel for the congregation on the corner of Forest Lane and Woodgrange Road.

Sketch of Legg's first local preaching
 spot - by the original Forest Gate.
See footnote for source

The couple were able to solicit a donation from near-by resident and prison reformer, Elizabeth Fry, to help towards the £220 construction costs of the 100 seater chapel. The building was known simply as the Forest Gate Chapel.

This new, purpose-built, church expanded to run a day school during the week, in the era before state provided education. It opened in 1832 - at about the time of the passing of the Great Reform Bill, and seven years before the railway - which provided the real spur to Forest Gate's development - arrived in town. The school started with 48 pupils, when the population of Forest Gate was barely 350 people.

Sketch of the building in its original
 state as a Congregationalist chapel.
  See footnote for source

At this time most schools were based around religious institutions, those attached to the Church of England became generally known as "National" schools, and those associated with non-conformist churches - like the Congregationalists - were known as "British" schools. This was a "British" school, as can be seen marked on the 1863 Ordnance Survey map, see below - the first of its kind in the area.

1863 Ordnance survey map, showing
 the building as a "British" school, and the
 new chapel, around the corner, in
 Chapel Street - see below

With the coming of the railways and the growth of Forest Gate, the congregation soon began to outgrow the newly established premises, and the Congregationalists were on the lookout for a new and larger home, yet again.

Samuel Gurney, the banker, relative of Elizabeth Fry, and local landowner, who prospered greatly from the sale of his holdings for the development of Forest Gate, donated £100 and land to the Congregationalist church, just behind what is now Forest Gate school, in the mid 1850's, for the construction of a much larger chapel (see map, above).

Sketch of the Chapel Street chapel.
  See footnote for source

A total of £1,560 was raised to pay for the 350 seater church (see diagram below), described as being "a commodious and neat building of Italian design, similar to those recently erected in Yarmouth and Lowestoft and by the same architect". It was opened in 1856, in what the 1863 map, shown below named Chapel Street (later Chapter Street), in honour of the building.

Forest Gate photographer, Edward
 Wright's undated photo of the
Chapel (later Chapter ) Street building

Membership of this congregation more than doubled by the 1880's - expanding significantly, in keeping with the rapid development of the area's population - and it outgrew the building.  So, it was, in turn, replaced by the 1,000 seater church, which still stands on Sebert Road.

1880's constructed, fourth and final
 location of Forest Gate Congregationalist
church, Sebert Road

We are getting ahead of ourselves. The Woodgrange Road building remained as a British school once the Chapel Street church was built in the 1850's. In 1871, according to the newly established West Ham School Board, it had a roll of 65.
  
One of the first acts of the new School Board was to construct its own purpose built school, Odessa, with a roll of 703. This opened in 1874 and the National School closed. Its, then, 88 pupils transferred along the road to Odessa school.

We do not have a complete timeline for the subsequent fate of the building. Kelly's Directory of 1890, however, shows it as the headquarters of the Forest Gate and Upton District Liberal and Radical Association, confirmed by the 1895 map, below and the turn of the century photograph taken by prominent Forest Gate photographer, Edward Wright.

1893 Ordnance Survey map, showing the premises as a "club", and round the corner, in Chapel Street showing a Sunday school (belonging to Sebert Road Congregationalist church) after the church itself re-located, yet again, a couple of hundred yards away to Sebert Road.

By 1908 the club had been renamed the South Essex Club.

Turn of century Edward Wright photo,
showing the building as headquarters
 of the Forest Gate and Upton
Liberal and Radical Association

According to histories of cinema venues, the building had a short life as a cinema, between 1910 and its closure at the start of World War 1, in 1914.  It was known as the King's Hall (not to be confused with the King's Cinema, which occupied what later became the Upper Cut Club, at the foot of Woodgrange Road). Unfortunately, no photograph of the building serving this function seems to have survived.

Between the two World Wars, the building was converted to become Max Fietcher's house furnishers (according to a 1925 trade directory), and subsequently Shenker Brothers, drapers (1938).

Following the second world war the premises housed WM John Biles, glaziers and glass suppliers, from at least 1949 until the 1990's, when it closed, having employed a dozen or so people. It was a well-known local landmark and boon to many a local builder and diy-er.

Since the 1990's the premises have been a restaurant, in a number of guises, most recently as Angel's - see photograph, below.  For at least some of that time it functioned as Forest Gate's most notorious drug dealing premises!

Angel's closed last year, having acquired a pretty poor reputation, food-wise and in terms of the behaviour of its customers. Since that time Pyramid Pizza were on the point of acquiring it, then pulled out after a rent hike, and after a short period of continues closure it re-emerged as a meeting place for an evangelical church - apparently without permission for a change of use.

In its current state. What next for
 this undistinguished-looking,
 but historic, local landmark?

The sign is now down - so watch this space for further twists in the development of this rather ordinary, but quite remarkable local building.

NB. We are deeply indebted to the publication Hitherto, Henceforth, published in 1956, celebrating the centenary of the Chapel Street church for the sketches, showing the meeting places of the Congregationalists, in Forest Gate.

Alms and the manor

 Almshouses have been established from the 10th century to the present day. They have enabled people (typically elderly folk who can no longer work to earn enough to pay rent) to live in a particular community free of charge, or at minimal costs. They are often targeted at the poor of a locality, at those from certain forms of previous employment, or their widows, and are generally maintained by a church, charity or the trustees of a bequest.

Most were established before the age of local authority housing, and operate on a fairly small scale. Increasingly, the trusts that were established to administer them have passed their running over to larger social landlords, such as housing associations.

Forest Gate is unusual in that it at one time it hosted three, very separate, but small Almshouse developments, offering between them accommodation for no more than a couple of dozen people.

 Of the three, one - the Pawnbrokers almshouses, of which we have already written (here) - was established by a trade association, and no longer exists. The two other sets were established by religious philanthropists, who created trusts and charities to manage them. These bodies have subsequently passed the functions on to local housing associations.

Forest Gate Retreat, Odessa Road

Jabez Legg lived in Stratford and was an undertaker and Congregational minister in the early 19th century.

The old Congregational church, Sebert
Road, which replaced Legg's church.  He
also established the Forest Gate retreat

In the 1820's Wanstead House was in its prime and received a steady flow of visitors, many of whom travelled along what is now Woodgrange Road for their visits.  Among the attractions, en route, were the tea gardens in the Eagle and Child Public House, on Woodford Road.

Legg decided to build a small Chapel near to this garden, at a cost of £220, offering weekly services and day school facilities, for visitors to Wanstead, and the growing local population.  He chose a site at the junction of Forest Lane and Woodgrange Road. The building was completed in 1830.
 
Within a quarter of a century, the rapid growth of Forest Gate, brought about by the development of the railways, meant that the small Chapel was no longer large enough to cater for local demand.  

With the help of local Quakers, including Samuel Gurney, he was able to construct a much grander Congregational Church, in Forest Lane - at a cost of a little over £1,500.  This opened in 1856. This, itself, was superseded by the large Congregational Church (now the Ark Church, and Renewal Programme headquarters) on Sebert Road a further quarter of a century later.

Legg built the first three of six cottages, known as Forest Gate Retreat, near to the second chapel - as homes for his retired family female servants - two years later.  Three more cottages were added in 1863.  They are still situated on Forest Lane at the junction of Odessa Road, facing the railway line.


Forest Gate retreat - Legg's almshouses,
Odessa Road and Forest Lane

After Legg's death, aged 81, in 1867, his family administered the alms houses. They broadened its base or target population and offered accommodation to needy, usually local, women.  Feeling the need for some support and taking advantage of the economies of scale, the Legg Charitable Trust merged in 1939 with a similar organisation, in Wimbledon, to become the Legg-Whittuck trust.  

This subsequently joined Pathways - a not-for-profit organisation dealing mainly with sheltered housing projects, in 2012.

The six, one-bed roomed,  houses are available for single female tenants, who meet Pathway's selection criteria, and can come from anywhere in the country.  Most of the residents, however, have a local connection.

Meggs Almshouses - Upton Lane

These 12 self-contained, sheltered,  one-bed roomed flats on Upton Lane were built in 1893, to replace an earlier development on Whitechapel Road. The original ones were constructed in 1658, by City benefactor and draper, William Meggs, to provide accommodation for the elderly, industrious poor. He had already assisted with the development of churches in Stepney.

The Whitechapel Road development was demolished in 1883 to make way for railway construction and the Rector and Churchwarden of Whitechapel, who were trustees of the charity that Meggs had established, chose a spot on Upton Lane for their replacement, a decade later.

Late 19th century image of
Megg's Almshouses, Upton Lane

The almshouses are currently listed and now managed by East Living, which is part of the East Thames Housing Group. The development includes a communal lounge and garden and laundry. Would-be tenants must be either Newham or Tower Hamlets residents.

The Pawnbrokers Almshouse , Woodgrange Road

The Pawnbrokers' alms-houses, Woodgrange Road were built in 1849 - about the time the railway arrived in Forest Gate -by the Pawnbrokers Charitable institution. They accommodated 8 residents, not necessarily from West Ham, who had qualified because they had a connection with the pawn broking trade.

The buildings formed an impressive group in 'Elizabethan' style. We provided a detailed account of these fine house here, in July this year.  That account included some contemporaneous reporting of the lives and times of the residents.

The old Pawnbrokers almshouses of
Woodgrange Road, demolished 1897

The houses were knocked down in 1897 to make way for further commercial development along Woodgrange Road. This included the local public hall, which in turn developed into range of cinemas (see here), a skating rink, the Uppercut club etc and is now a ventilation shaft for the channel tunnel rail link, as well as the Woodgrange Road shops themselves, which of course, survive.