St Michael's Church, Grove Park (also called St Michael's, Sutton Court and St Michael's, Chiswick) is an Anglican church in the Grove Park district of

Chiswick Chiswick ( ) is a district in West London, split between the London Borough of Hounslow, London Boroughs of Hounslow and London Borough of Ealing, Ealing. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist Wi ...

, opened in 1909. Its red brick architecture by

W. D. Caröe William Douglas Caröe (1 September 1857 – 25 February 1938) was a British architect, particularly of churches. Early life Caröe was born on 1 September 1857 in Holmsdale, Blundellsands, near Liverpool, the youngest son of the List of diplo ...

& Herbert Passmore has been praised by

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

Architecture

St Michael's Church on Elmwood Road in the Sutton Court area of

Grove Park, Chiswick Grove Park is an area in the south of Chiswick, now in the borough of Hounslow, West London. It lies in the meander of the Thames occupied by Duke's Meadows park. Historically, the area belonged to one of the four historic villages in modern C ...

, was designed in the

Arts and Crafts style The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...

by the architects

& Herbert Passmore; it was founded in 1908 and completed in 1909. It is described by

in ''

The Buildings of England ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

'' as "one of Caröe's most interesting churches in outer London". The "picturesque" building is in red brick, its

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ...

es joined by tiled arches, and with

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a Roof pitch, pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the ...

s in the roof. The crossing-point of the roof is marked by a turret with shingles and tiles; on the north of the crossing is "a curiously domestic excrescence" for ventilation and the church's

belfry The belfry /ˈbɛlfri/ is a structure enclosing bells for ringing as part of a building, usually as part of a bell tower or steeple. It can also refer to the entire tower or building, particularly in continental Europe for such a tower attached ...

. The windows have decorative curving stone tracery in "free flamboyant Gothic" style; they are recessed under tiled arches. Inside, the font, lectern, and pulpit were brought from St Michael on the Strand, while the 1911 choir stalls were designed by Caröe. The south chapel's roof has a decoration made by Antony Lloyd in 1932. The

stained glass Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

windows in the south chapel and the sanctuary were made by Horace Wilkinson between 1914 and 1925. The historian Jennifer Freeman writes of the building that "the emphasis externally is on the craftwork, on careful stone dressings, on subtle variations in the tilework, on the timbering, brickwork and leadwork", while it fits into its environment sensitively, in a place "still leafy enough to evoke the setting of a simple country church. Yet the building is a highly complex composition of red brick and tile".Peacock cites Freeman's book for these quotations. The St Michael's church architect Patrick Crawford comments that the most remarkable feature of the church is its tiled arches. File:St Michael (Sutton Court), Elmwood Road front.jpg, Elmwood Road front, showing some of the unusual shallow tiled arches File:St Michael (Sutton Court) Elmwood Road, architectural detail.jpg, Architectural detail File:St Michael (Sutton Court) Elmwood Road, western end.jpg, Western end, facing Sutton Lane South File:St Michael (Sutton Court) Elmwood Road, foundation stone.jpg, Foundation stone, laid by

Lord Kinnaird Lord Kinnaird was a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1682 for George Kinnaird, 1st Lord Kinnaird, George Kinnaird. The ninth Lord was created Baron Rossie, of Rossie in the County of Perth, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom i ...

, 19 December 1908 File:St Michael (Sutton Court) Elmwood Road, back facing garden.jpg, The garden side of the church

History

The building was funded by the sale of St Michael, Burleigh Street, on the Strand, in central London, raising the sum of £20,500. The old church was demolished and replaced by the Strand Palace Hotel. The vicar of

St Martin-in-the-Fields St Martin-in-the-Fields is a Church of England parish church at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. Dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, there has been a church on the site since at least the medieval pe ...

, near the Strand, became the patron of the new church. The new church cost £8,000 to build, including its site; the vicarage cost a further £1,800. A tin-roofed wooden church hall was built at a cost of £360; it was replaced in 1998 by a brick-built parish centre. The church was the last of the Anglican parishes of Chiswick to be created, serving the new population of the Grove Park area west of Sutton Court Road, which had consisted up until the 1900s mainly of

orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit tree, fruit- or nut (fruit), nut-producing trees that are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also so ...

s and

market garden A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. The diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically from under to s ...

s. The parish area was taken from the western part of the parish of St Nicholas, Chiswick. The church has been

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

since 1985.

Notes

References

Sources

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Michael's Church Grove Park Church of England church buildings in the London Borough of Hounslow Diocese of London Buildings and structures in Chiswick Grove Park Buildings by W. D. Caröe