addiscombe.org.uk - St Mary Magdalene with St Martin (St Mary's)

Please note that the church has an official website at http://www.stmmm.org.uk/.

[St Mary Magdalene with St Martin (Fotopic).]

Location

St Mary's, as it is commonly known, lies on the west side of Canning Road. The old vicarage is next door on the north side with the new vicarage in grounds behind it. The Magdalene Centre (the church hall) lies to the rear of the church with access around the south side of the building.

An aerial view of the church is available on Windows Live Search Maps.

Parish

The parish boundaries are quite easy to define as they basically cover all of Addiscombe west of the old Woodside to Selsdon railway line (now part of Tramlink). So the southern boundary is Addiscombe Road, the western and north-western boundary is the East Croydon to Norwood Junction railway line, and then Beckford Road joins the ends together.

Part of the parish would have been St Martin's before 1994. I don't know where the boundaries were before that but I should imagine they'd either have been along Morland Road or along the old Addiscombe to Woodside railway. St Mildred's was formed out of St Mary's in 1922.

History

In June 1867, building of a church began on Canning Road to the designs of Edward Buckton Lamb and using Kentish ragstone and Bath stone. The building opened in September 1868 though the west end was incomplete and only the first thirty feet of the tower at the east end was built. The original design for the tower included a spire and a clock.

The building took over the name St Paul's from an existing church which was not then recognised by the Church of England who set up the 'iron church' of St Mary Magdalene at the top of Elgin Road in August 1868. A sudden change in the nature of the service at St Paul's in June 1872 saw the previously struggling St Mary's suddenly gain a large congregation and it had to hire Havelock Hall, which had been the original home of St Paul's, to cope. St Paul's closed in December and in June 1874 the Church of England purchased the building which took over the name St Mary Magdalene. It was dedicated on 5th August 1874 and consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury in July 1878 with the parish being formed in 1879.

The vicarage was purchased in 1880 (having been built in 1870 but not being part of the purchase of the church) and St Mary's Hall in Oval Road opened in 1885.

In 1902, St Martin's church, on the corner of Stretton Road and Morland Road was opened as a chapel-at-ease (a.k.a. chapel-of-ease) for St James's.

In 1906 the west end of the church was finished in brick and stone to a design in Lamb's style.

In 1912, the Victoria County History of Surrey said of the church (not entirely correctly), and of St Martin's:

"The church of ST. MARY MAGDALENE, Addiscombe, was erected in 1878, a parish being formed for it in the following year. The church is built in the late 'decorated' style, and consists of a chancel, north vestry and transept, south transept, an unfinished nave with north and south aisles, and a tower, also unfinished, at the south-east of the chancel. The walls are faced with Kentish rag and the roofs are tiled."

"The church of ST. MARTIN is a red brick building with stone dressings, erected in 1902 in early 'decorated' style. The building consists of a nave in four bays—the easternmost one temporarily used as a chancel—north and south transepts, north and south aisles, a south porch, a small west baptistery and a flèche over the east end of the nave. The roofs are of pitch pine and are tiled."

St Mildred's Hall in Bingham Road opened in 1921 and became a separate parish in 1922.

In 1926 plans were approved to complete the tower to the designs of Hugh Macintosh and the 80 foot tower was dedicated in January 1930.

In July 1948 the vicarage moved to Havelock Road and in June 1956 a new hall to the rear of the church was dedicated, replacing the one in Oval Road.

In 1973 there was some internal reworking of the church and in 1977 a bookstall was erected, both to the designs of George Pace. The church had been designed with worship 'in the round' in mind, something which was quite against normal practice at the time, and this became a particularly popular movement in the 1970s. The 1973 reworking took things a stage further with the end result being that there is a lectern, a communion table, and two chairs surrounded by altar rails at the end of the nave with a lighting rig suspended above them that has been described as looking like a flying bedstead. The floor of the church was also raised and a number of pews were removed with the others rearranged to form more of a semi-circle around them. The capacity of the church was probably something like 1000 seated before the alterations and was reduced to about 500 including standing room.

There are two flights of steps up from the nave into the chancel. The first flight originally had seven steps, representing the perfect number seven, and the second flight had five bringing the total to twelve, representing the twelve apostles. I could count only six steps in the first flight now and this is presumably the result of the floor being raised during the 1973 alteration. Certainly when you look around the church at floor level things don't look quite right.

In 1983 the rear hall was extended and adapted and this was dedicated in 1984. A new vicarage was constructed to the rear of the original one.

In 1992 there was some extensive remodelling of the crypt to the designs of Patrick Crawford. It is now available for use as a meeting room.

In 1994 St Martin's church was made redundant and demolished. The parish was merged with St Mary Magdalene.

The Croydon Natural History and Scientific Society bulletin has included an article on 'The Reverend Ben-Oliel and the troubles at Addiscombe' which covers the early days of the church in much more detail.