St. Andrew's Church, Fulham, also known as St. Andrew's Church, West Kensington, is a
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
church located in
West Kensington
West Kensington, formerly North End, is an area in the ancient parish of Fulham, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, England, 3.4 miles (5.5 km) west of Charing Cross. It covers most of the London postal area of W14, includin ...
, near
Fulham
Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...
in southwest London. The church was founded in 1873.
The church is notable for the fact that some of its parishioners were responsible for establishing
Fulham Football Club
Fulham Football Club is an English professional football club based in Fulham, London, which compete in the . They have played home games at Craven Cottage since 1896, other than a two-year period spent at Loftus Road whilst Craven Cottage un ...
. It has been
Grade II listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
since 2009.
History
The foundation stone of St. Andrew's was laid on 14 June 1873 by
John Jackson John or Johnny Jackson may refer to:
Entertainment Art
* John Baptist Jackson (1701–1780), British artist
* John Jackson (painter) (1778–1831), British painter
* John Jackson (engraver) (1801–1848), English wood engraver
* John Richardson ...
,
Bishop of London
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
. The church was designed by
Newman
Newman is a surname of English origin and may refer to many people:
The surname Newman is widespread in the core Anglosphere.
A
*Abram Newman (1736–1799), British grocer
*Adrian Newman (disambiguation), multiple people
*Al Newman (born 1960) ...
and
Billing, and the architectural style was 13th-century
French Gothic
French Gothic architecture is an architectural style which emerged in France in 1140, and was dominant until the mid-16th century. The most notable examples are the great Gothic cathedrals of France, including Notre-Dame Cathedral, Reims Cathedra ...
. The church was officially consecrated on 25 July 1874, and on 30 November an
Order in Council
An Order-in-Council is a type of legislation in many countries, especially the Commonwealth realms. In the United Kingdom this legislation is formally made in the name of the monarch by and with the advice and consent of the Privy Council ('' Ki ...
was made by
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...
which gave St. Andrew's its own
parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...
, carved out of areas previously in the parishes of All Saints and St John's in Fulham, and St Mary's in West Kensington.
The pioneer
Channel swimmer, Captain
Matthew Webb
Captain Matthew Webb (19 January 1848 – 24 July 1883) was an English swimmer and stuntman. He is the first recorded person to swim the English Channel for sport without the use of artificial aids. In 1875, Webb swam from Dover to Calais in l ...
and his wife Madeleine Kate Chaddock were married at the church on 27 April 1880.
In 1893 the parish hall was completed. In 1894 it was discovered that St. Andrew's was becoming too small to support its congregation, and so the vicar decided to have the church enlarged slightly.
Aston Webb
Sir Aston Webb (22 May 1849 – 21 August 1930) was a British architect who designed the principal facade of Buckingham Palace and the main building of the Victoria and Albert Museum, among other major works around England, many of them in par ...
and
Ingress Bell
Edward Ingress Bell (1837–1914) was an English architect of the late 19th century, and early 20th century, who worked for many years with Sir Aston Webb.
Bell was born in Ingress Park, Greenhithe, Kent, and had already undertaken commissi ...
designed new
vestries
A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquially ...
to the west of the tower, and a new
baptistry
In Christian architecture the baptistery or baptistry (Old French ''baptisterie''; Latin ''baptisterium''; Greek , 'bathing-place, baptistery', from , baptízein, 'to baptize') is the separate centrally planned structure surrounding the baptismal ...
adjacent to the south aisle. The organ was moved to a new loft.
In 1973 the Victorian church hall was sold and demolished, and a new hall installed at the west end of the church. This was further altered in 2011 when it was turned into a four-storey community centre, separated from the main part of the church by a glass screen. At the same time, the church building was given a new floor and
baptismal font
A baptismal font is an article of church furniture used for baptism.
Aspersion and affusion fonts
The fonts of many Christian denominations are for baptisms using a non-immersive method, such as aspersion (sprinkling) or affusion (pouring). ...
and the pews were replaced by chairs.
Architecture
The church is built in the
Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
style of yellow stock
brick
A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...
banded with red brick and Box stone dressings. It includes a distinctive
tower
A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...
and
spire
A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...
at the west end, a nave with round thick-traceried windows in the low clerestory, lean-to aisles, north and south
transept
A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building withi ...
s, and separate, lower
chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse.
Ove ...
, and a semicircular baptistery, added by Webb and Bell, with a conical roof and single foiled lights in flush stone surrounds.
The church was given the bell of the former
St Martin Outwich in the
City of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...
, said to be the only church bell to have survived the
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the ...
, and still in use today.
Inside the church, the
rood screen
The rood screen (also choir screen, chancel screen, or jubé) is a common feature in late medieval church architecture. It is typically an ornate partition between the chancel and nave, of more or less open tracery constructed of wood, stone, or ...
beam was designed by
Aston Webb
Sir Aston Webb (22 May 1849 – 21 August 1930) was a British architect who designed the principal facade of Buckingham Palace and the main building of the Victoria and Albert Museum, among other major works around England, many of them in par ...
and erected to mark the
Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria
The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria was officially celebrated on 22 June 1897 to mark the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. Queen Victoria was the first British monarch ever to celebrate a Diamond ...
in 1897. It is made of
sequoia wood. The current
altar
An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in paga ...
was installed in 1900, along with the current
reredos
A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images.
The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for ex ...
, designed by the notable sculptor and woodcarver
Harry Hems
Harry Hems (12 June 1842 – 5 January 1916) was an English architectural and ecclesiastical sculptor who was particularly inspired by Gothic architecture and a practitioner of Gothic Revival. He founded and ran a large workshop in Exeter, Devon ...
. The reredos is made of
Caen stone
Caen stone (french: Pierre de Caen) is a light creamy-yellow Jurassic limestone quarried in north-western France near the city of Caen. The limestone is a fine grained oolitic limestone formed in shallow water lagoons in the Bathonian Age about ...
accompanied by
lapis lazuli
Lapis lazuli (; ), or lapis for short, is a deep-blue metamorphic rock used as a semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense color.
As early as the 7th millennium BC, lapis lazuli was mined in the Sar-i Sang mines, ...
mosaics, and depicts the risen Christ with the Archangels Michael and Gabriel. The altar, in memory of Rosa Adeline Gibbs (1874–97), is of Derbyshire
alabaster
Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft, often used for carving, and is processed for plaster powder. Archaeologists and the stone processing industry use the word differently from geologists. The former use it in a wider sense that includes ...
with a Sicilian
marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...
slab top, and base and jambs of Devonshire marble.
Hems and his company also made the wooden choir stalls, which were installed in 1902 to mark the
coronation of Edward VII and Alexandra
The coronation of Edward VII and his wife, Alexandra, as King and Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and as Emperor and Empress of India took place at Westminster Abbey, London, on 9 August 1902. Originally scheduled for 26 ...
that year, and the wooden
pulpit
A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...
, installed in 1903.
Murder of David Paget
On 31 May 2001, the parishioners of St. Andrew's were shocked and saddened to hear that their vicar, the Reverend David Paget, had been stabbed to death in his own vicarage. He had failed to turn up to a Eucharist that morning and the church's treasurer entered the vicarage to discover his dead body lying there. He was described by one local as "a very happy guy who never had a problem with anyone" and "he would always be the sort of chap who would try and solve problems out". A parishioner remarked that "he was always free for anyone to talk to and I think this is why he got killed. He was vulnerable and he often had strange characters around. Nobody was bad in his eyes".
On 16 June 2001, the prime suspect was found dead next to a tower block in east London.
It was later revealed that the murder had been committed by a young man whom the vicar had taken to his home for counselling, who committed suicide afterwards.
References
{{coords, 51.4870, -0.2087, display=title
19th-century Church of England church buildings
Church of England church buildings in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
Churches completed in 1873
Diocese of London
Fulham
Fulham
Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...