St Michael and All Angels Church, Lowfield Heath
| St Michael and All Angels Church | |
|
Lowfield Heath, Surrey | |
|---|---|
.JPG) The church from the north | |
| Church of England | |
| Diocese of Chichester | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ27424010 |
| Location: | 51°8’46"N, 0°10’47"W |
| Address: | Church Road |
| History | |
| Built 15 July 1867 | |
| French Gothic | |
| Information | |
| Website: | gatwick.adventistchurch.org.uk |
St Michael and All Angels Church is a church in Lowfield Heath, a depopulated former village in the south of Surrey, squashed against the southern boundary of Gatwick Airport. It is technically a Church of England church, but is in practice used by a Seventh Day Adventist congregation.
Built by the Gothic Revival architect William Burges in 1867 to serve the village, it declined in importance as Lowfield Heath was gradually appropriated for the expansion of Gatwick Airport and of its related development. The last Anglican service was held there in 2004, but the church reopened in 2008 as a Seventh-day Adventist place of worship.
The building is a Grade II* listed building,[1] It is also the only building remaining in the former village from the era before the airport existed: every other structure was demolished, and the church now stands among warehouses, depots and light industrial units.
History
The hamlet of Lowfield Heath grew up on the heath of the same name, less than a mile north of the border with Sussex, after 1770, when the London to Brighton road (now the A23) was turnpiked.[2][3] The road ran across the heath on its way to Crawley, and a few farms and houses were built close to it. The heath, which had been common land, was enclosed in 1827 and 1846, encouraging more residential development.[3] Lowfield Heath grew into a small village, with amenities such as a school, public house and post office.[4][5]
The heath overspread the county border, but the village is in Surrey, and was part of the Parish of Charlwood. A merchant donated some land in the centre of the village, which had been used to grow damsons, for the construction of a church. The work fell to William Burges, a celebrated architect who had worked on The Great Exhibition in London and Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork and who later built Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch in Glamorgan,
Work started in 1867, and the foundation stone was laid on 15 July of that year. The consecration ceremony took place on 1 December 1868. Despite its small size, the village continued to thrive for the next 80 years, and the church was considered its "architectural highlight".[3]
The village fell into steady decline in the 1950s when Gatwick Aerodrome was expanded to become Gatwick Airport—London's second international airport.[4][6] Between the early 1950s, when the Government announced its decision, and the early 1970s, when the White Lion public house and the last few houses were demolished, every original building in the village, except the church, was destroyed.[4][5] Following the rapid expansion of nearby Crawley, and the extension of its ancient parish to include several churches and large parts of the New Town, St Michael and All Angels was transferred from the Parish of Charlwood in the Diocese of Guildford to the Parish of Crawley in the Diocese of Chichester: thereby it came under the control of the parish church of St John the Baptist.
A special service was held at the church in 1989 to commemorate the loss of the village. A plaque was unveiled by the entrance door:
| “ | In commemoration of a service held in this church at Lowfield Heath on the 30th September 1989 for the occasion of a reunion of those who formed the village community at the outbreak of the Second First World Warn 1939 and whose homes and village were subsequently displaced by the development of Gatwick International Airport | ” |
Architecture
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William Burges adopted a French Gothic style, similar to that popular in the 13th century, for his design for St Michael and All Angels.[1][7] The exterior is of small, regular blocks of mostly undressed yellow sandstone quarried from the nearby St Leonard's Forest.[1][7] Bath Stone is also used sparingly as a dressing material.[1]
The building has a tower at the southwest corner with a shingled timber spire, a narthex at the western end (with a large rose window in the west face), a vestry on the north side and a chancel and nave.[1] Carved panels surround the rose window, representing the Four Ages of Man.[1][7]
The roofs of the main body of the church are quite steep, and internally are built of pine in an arch formation with tie-beams and supported by king posts.[1] Paired columns mounted on corbels support the chancel arch.[7]
Burges was responsible for many of the sculptures and carvings inside the church, and there are some stained glass windows from the 19th and 20th centuries. The east wall has a pair of lancet windows and a small rose window.[7]
The churchyard contains the war graves of two soldiers of First World War and a Royal Air Force officer of Second World War.[8]
The church today
The Diocese of Chichester stopped using the church for services in 2004, and sought to dispose of the building. In March 2008 it allowed a Seventh-day Adventist congregation to use it as its place of worship. Horley Seventh-Day Adventist Church was formed in May 2005 as a church plant of an Adventist community in the Hackbridge area of urban Surrey, and was formally established in January 2008.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 National Heritage List 1187081: Church of St Michael and All Angels, Church Road, Lowfield Heath (Grade II* listing)
- ↑ Gwynne 1990, p. 98.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Goldsmith 1987, p. 121.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Goldsmith 1987, p. 122.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Goldsmith 1990, p. 85.
- ↑ Gwynne 1990, p. 170.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Surrey, 1962; 1971 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09675-0page 204
- ↑ [1] CWGC cemetery report, details from casualty record.
Bibliography
- Goldsmith, Michael (1987). Crawley and District in Old Picture Postcards. Zaltbommel: European Library. ISBN 90-288-4525-9.
- Goldsmith, Michael (1990). Around Crawley in Old Photographs. Stroud: Alan Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-86299-716-X.
- Gwynne, Peter (1990). A History of Crawley (1st ed.). Chichester: Phillimore & Co. ISBN 0-85033-718-6.
- Nairn, Ian; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1965). The Buildings of England: Sussex. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-071028-0.
