St Anne's and St Andrew's Church

For most of the 20^th Century, the congregations of St Anne’s Anglican Church and St Andrew’s United Reformed Church (formerly Presbyterian Church) worshiped at their respective Church buildings off Salusbury Road.

St Anne’s Church

Founded in July 1904.

Interior view of the Nave (c. 1965)

St Andrew’s Church, 44 Salusbury Road

Founded in September 1910 (contemporary picture)

 

Members of St Anne’s and St Andrew’s congregations today were drawn to Brondesbury during the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s.  Some came for education and training, some for work, others to find an affordable home to raise a young family or to find a church and a community. 

Alice (St Anne's): “I moved here [in 1985] when I had just finished university and moved to London to do a teacher training qualification …I had some friends who were looking for somewhere to live and we just did it with a pin in the Evening Standard and found a flat above what was then a fruit shop - and I’ve been here ever since.

I went to St Anne’s because it was my local parish church but I wasn’t quite sure for quite a long time whether it was a Roman Catholic Church or an Anglican Church because it was very bells and smells at the time. Well I stayed because I quite liked the fact it was mildly eccentric with a range of age group weighted towards the older end  ..  and it was quite nice to be welcomed because you were a young person and young people don’t necessarily walk into a church. “

The community that formed around St Andrew’s often had roots in Africa or the West Indies.  Jessica first travelled to the UK by ship from Ghana to train as a psychiatric nurse,

 "I came on my own.  My father refused to sign my passport because he didn't think I should go.  I was 21.  I had never been to England, apart from reading [about it] because we did history .... But when I got to Liverpool I broke down there and then!  'I want to go back home!'  What I imagined wasn't like that at all and I cried for weeks .... "

 

The fortunes of both churches by the late 1980’s to early 1990’s however, were in decline:

“Then the church was going down – the old men were dying and many people moved away …  Here is not like Africa, where people can take their car and go to worship 10 miles away.  Here, if you live in Leytonstone and there’s a church, you go there.”  Chief Manfo, St Andrew’s.

“ ….  I think it was the thing really. It was getting to that stage where it would need really quite expensive repairs and so on and so forth … and the idea was kind of mooted that it might be better to make a fresh start…” Trish, St Anne’s.

(L-R) Fr Fergus Capie and Revd Barrie Scopes

The two Churches, led by Revd Barrie Scopes (URC) and initially Fr Gerald Beauchamp and later Fr Fergus Capie (Anglican) took steps to build a new future.  Both Churches went onto the market:  St Andrew’s was sold to a Christian community with roots in Singapore:

“The Lord then graciously sent Rev Timothy Poh to recommend a URC property in Queen’s Park that was up for sale and was on the verge of being sold to the Hindus to be converted into a Temple ….. with an eleventh hour bid [we purchased] the 100-yr-old Church at 44 Salusbury Road for a sum of £465,000.” (Bible Life history)   

And the site of St Anne’s was partially sold to a property developer – and where once stood the church is now St Anne’s Court flats.  St Anne’s and St Andrew’s pooled their resources for a new building.

Ideas take shape….

Trish: “We went round and looked at other churches; churches that had gone into together with one another (Local Ecumenical Projects), we looked at how they operated and we went and looked at more recently built churches to see the sort of things we wanted …….  Some of our older members of the congregation thought we were mad when we decided we wanted a round building.  I can’t actually remember how the idea first came up but it did, and we fancied it …."

Architectural drawings of the intended first floor of the new centre, 

by HSD Architects, including the Church and the Rotunda.

Between homes

While the new Church was being designed and built, the Congregation of St Anne’s went first to St Andrew’s to worship, and then later, both congregations went to worship in Salusbury Primary School, where one worshiper remembers, ‘the Altar was set up beneath a picture of the ‘Very Hungry Caterpillar’.

Anna remembers: “The congregation gathered in the main hall which, as for many primary schools, doubled as a gym so wall bars surrounded us as well as named pegs for coats and lunchboxes and an all-pervading smell of crayons and floor cleaner. I think we had a couple of candlesticks, a bell, some plastic chairs set out in pew-like rows and hymn books but not much else. Sunday School took place in one of the classrooms, by chance my daughter's Reception classroom, which must have given her, aged 4, a strange idea of Sunday School… “

A blessing for the site

On 13 December 1996 His Grace The Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr George Carey), visited the site of the new building to offer special prayers of Blessing and Dedication (Left).

Then on 1 July 1997 Revd Janet Sowerbutts, Moderator of the United Reformed Church, North Thames Province and the Rt Revd Graham Dow, Bishop of Willesden lay the foundation stone ‘of the ecumenical community church to be shared by St Andrew’s URC and St Anne’s Church of England.’  The foundation stone was carved by CJ Jordan and Son Ltd of Acton, and is a section of the old St Anne’s foundation stone (now preserved inside the Centre).

Rt Revd Graham Dow, Bishop of Willesden and Revd Janet Sowerbutts, Moderator 
of the United Reformed Church, North Thames Province laying the foundation stone.

Creating a new church space

Trish (St Anne's), “We had all sorts of agonies about what we kept and what we didn’t keep from the old church … I think actually we were ruthless in the end and we got rid of everything that we didn’t feel fitted into the new building.  There’s just a stained glass window of the Good Shepherd that came across and is now in the Trinity Chapel … “

Interior of St Anne's and St Andrew's Church

Alice (St Anne's), “It was very interesting re-aligning your mental picture and your physical sense and your aesthetic sense of what a church is like and this new church was as uncluttered as the old church was cluttered and it was as full of light as the old church had been dark and that was just lovely …. And I’ve loved sitting in the worship space ever since ….

A formal opening and a new beginning

On Sunday 17 May 1998 at 3.30pm, St Anne’s and St Andrew’s Church and the London Inter Faith Centre celebrated their Dedication and Opening Ceremony by The Rt Revd and Rt Hon Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London and Dr David Thompson, ex-Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church.

Music was played by Peter Walter, and David Till led and conducted a nineteen strong choir that had spent months preparing for the occasion.

It was an exciting and memorable occasion, “we had a marquee set up outside and a lot of people came from the different faith communities … there was only one thing that was unfortunate about that occasion we had incense and it set off the smoke alarm in the middle of the service … we’d done the best we could to muffle the smoke alarms but unfortunately the chap who was doing the incense got a little bit carried away!  However someone managed to stop it before too long …”

Recognition and acknowledgement

L - R, Felicity, Trisha and Viola

On Sunday 21 July 2013, to their great surprise Trisha and Viola, Churchwardens who have followed the fortunes and served the congregations of of St Anne’s were awarded the Order of St Mellitus by the Bishop of London for their many years (decades) of devoted service.

Viola, “It was awarded for long service in St Anne’s; for coming here for over 25 years, but I didn't know it was happening (laughter).

My children and my grandchildren knew and I was shocked when I saw them walk in, I said, ‘What's going on?’ and they didn't tell me anything.  I saw my daughter first and some of the grand children and then my son came in and I thought, there's something - and I still didn't know.  And they kept it all that time.

I’ve been coming here for a long time and I never know anyone that received one.  There were two of us who received it.  I was pleased, but I was shocked because I didn't know it was happening… a Lovely day. “

Inter Faith
Alongside the work of both Churches, 125 Salusbury Road is the home of The London Inter Faith Centre a Christian-hosted centre for encounter between people of all faiths and none; for shared silence, for learning about each other through meeting, storytelling, music and study; and for working together for a better Brent, London and world.

 

Helen attends a Zen Christian Meditation Group on Thursday evenings at the Centre. Here she shares why she started coming:

“Its Zen Buddhism mixed in with Christianity. We do forty-five minutes sitting; quarter of an hour walking meditation and its really part of my routine and when I don't go now, I miss it.    It’s not the same doing it on your own; it’s something about being in a group and doing it in the church, which has a circular atmosphere and being with others doing the same activity; it’s very reassuring and very enhancing.

My husband died in 2009 and I stopped work in January 2011 and had a year out from work and that was when I was seeking new contacts, new people.  When my husband died it was very shocking and very emotional, obviously,  and …, I became reawakened in my faith.  It just gave me the strength to carry on and meditation is that“.  


 

St Andrews - Individual stories

The congregation of St Andrew's are mostly of African heritage.  They were drawn to Brent 20-30 years ago for different reasons; to raise a family, to work or to find a place of worship that reflected their religious upbringing.  They found St Andrew's at 44 Salusbury Road.  The following are memories and reflections from members of the congregation.

Chief Manfo's story:

   
Jessica's story:

  
Hannah's story:

Florette's story:

'The Story of St Andrew's' a short film introducing some of the congregation who worship at St Andrews United Reform Church and their Minister, Revd. Maggie Hindley:

http://vimeo.com/user7939673

 St Anne's - individual stories

The members of St Anne's congregation were drawn to the area for similar reasons as the congregation of St Andrew's; because it was affordable, because there was a park and they were parents of young children, because there was a place to worship.

Liz (T)

David's Story

Young People chatting about Church

 

Alice's Story

 

Lee's story:

In the late 1990s' and with her sons spending more time away from home; at uni, on a gap year, Lee became more involved with the church.

"I got very involved doing the garden .. and still got very strong attachment to it and … it was a funny start because Fr Fergus said to the congregation that we’re going to have all this car park and then empty beds around it - Can everybody bring one or two plants and we'll put them in .. where you think best...' And so everybody did!

There wasn't really very much planning and some of us talked about it and .. made judgements and we decided to have a lavender hedge or that sort of thing, but mostly it was plonkety, plonk!  One of the things about the lavender is it grows on very poor soil and so it does well here.  It has to be replanted every ten years.  A real battle to dig up and um, we plant again...  It does very well in sun and there's no shade here and being blue, its good with the church.

I come once a week only for 2-3 hours but um,  as a team we do it once a month.   I had a Swedish friend [over] the other day who said, ‘How much do they pay you?’ ….. ‘What, its voluntary?! but in Sweden we pay everybody!’ …….."

 

Liz's story

“I moved into the area, 41 years ago but i wasn't going to church in those days. I got to know Liz ; we had had children together and over a long time she told me about the changes here and what was going on and I joined a meditation group, probably 10 years ago now.    Then in 2007, they were doing an interfaith course.  I found it really interesting.  I did some work with a Sufi group, who I still know and am involved with, and during the course, I realised that I was either going to find a faith that would fit for me or ..  as I come from a long line of Anglicans and having been brought up one, maybe I should just go back to being an Anglican.   So rather shyly and uncomfortably to start with, I joined the congregation of St Anne’s.

I will now say I go to church but I know a lot of people who don't, so it takes a while when you've been a fairly active non-church goer, so I’m in a slightly transitional stage” 

 

Finding out about St Anne's

http://st-annes-brondesbury.org.uk

Finding out about the London Inter Faith Centre

http://londoninterfaith.org.uk