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Rev. Chris heads out at Gospel Oak

29/4/2018

Chris Brice presided at his last Sunday service at the glorious Grade 1-listed St Martin's, Gospel Oak today. He's retiring this week after more than a decade as the vicar of this north London parish. And I was one of a congregation of, I'd guess, 250 who came together to wish him well. The service lasted two hours what with all the gifts and tributes, and the Rev Chris's own numerous speeches, declarations and asides - oh, and a fairly full-on sermon which seemed to be unyielding in its theology (about Christianity being the truth, which I suppose means that every other religion or belief system is in error).

I should be able to work out what Chris Brice's tradition within the C of E is, but I can't quite place it. It's not standard Anglo-Catholic (no cassocks, incense, and he's not a Father), but nor is it happy-clappy evangelical either. It does take liturgy and ritual seriously - the doxology got a mention on today's order of service (look it up for yourself!)

Chris himself has worked his personal magic on a difficult parish - this is not the Heath-side part of Gospel Oak, but the bit surrounded by a fairly tough post-war housing estate. He's brought compassion and service to his calling. He also presided over the successful application for funds, and then the building work, which saw all the towers and turrets on this crazy, fairy-tale mid-Victorian church restored to their full glory. And he was the incumbent too at the 150th anniversary service a couple of years back, which benefited from his sense of occasion.

St Martin's will miss Chris - and I am fairly sure Chris will miss St Martin's. I am a resolute non-believer, but this was a church I was happy to go to from time-to-time. I was once even prevailed upon to read the lesson - which says something about the vicar's powers of persuasion.

Take care, Chris!

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St Martin's @ 150

6/12/2015

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To St Martin's in Gospel Oak this morning - one of the very few Victorian parish churches to be Grade I listed - for a packed service to mark its 150th anniversary. I reckon there must have been 200 people there; it was wonderful to see this magnificently eccentric church (I am talking about the design) so full. The distinctly evangelical Bishop of Edmonton presided ... the local MP Sir Keir Starmer was there ... Michael Palin was in the congregation ... but it was very much Chris Brice's show. He's the minister - a busy, attentive and always-on-the-go local vicar. who clearly loves St Martin's and managed to get its fairy tale turrets and pinnacles restored with lottery money

The church is not in the posh part of Gospel Oak, bordering Hampstead Heath - it's on the other side of Mansfield Road, squeezed between the beautiful enclave of Oak Village and the less enchanting post-war housing estate. The figures for local deprivation, which the bishop recited in his sermon, were alarming. This is not gentrified north London.

Most memorable at today's service were the memories of those with an association with St Martin's, and it's now demolished sister church of St Andrew's on Malden Road, stretching back in one instance to the 1940s. Amid the churn and upheaval of a modern capital, St Martin's is about community - a constantly changing and reinventing community, but a community all the same.

Another nice element: an impromptu rendition of 'Happy Birthday, Dear St Martin's'!

And in case you are wondering - I'm the token atheist who occasionally makes up the numbers at St Martin's, not least because I like beautiful old churches and I'm happy to see at least some of them keeping to the original line of work. Hallelujah!

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A weekend's wanders ... or Cruising in St Pancras

20/9/2015

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A wonderful sunny autumn weekend - ideal for wandering around London. The photo above was taken close to Granary Square, the development on the site of the King's Cross goods yard. There's oodles of artificial grass on the Granary Square canal bank - but that isn't artificial grass in the photo, it's the Regent's canal. Completely choked with vivid green algae. I am sure some toddler is going to jump on to it thinking it's a football pitch.

Nearby the St Pancras Cruising Club (yes, you've got that right!) was having an open day - they keep their narrow boats in the St Pancras basin nearby. And they have as their club rooms the entirely wonderful St Pancras Water Point, originally providing water for steam trains and relocated (what a huge task!) to save it from demolition as part of the area's regeneration.

It's been Open House weekend - and I've popped into a couple of awesome architect designed houses in NW5, the Burton House at the bottom of Lady Margaret Road and artists' studios hidden away on Rochester Place.

And walking at the back of St Giles-in-the-Fields I saw that the Elms Lesters Painting Rooms - built as painting studio in 1904 - were open, so I popped in. I've always been curious about the place, But it wasn't part of Open House - it was hosting 'a curation of the rising stars of the London fashion scene'. And my point and click was the most basic camera in sight, by at least £2k:

And then a quick visit to the 'Clouds' installation, thousands of differently sized whte balloons at the Covent Garden piazza. A really successful example of public art.

On my walkabout I noticed that St Martin's Gospel Oak, with its recently restored pinnacle and tower, was looking particularly splendid in the autumn sun. Don't you agree?

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A hidden, special corner of Gospel Oak

7/6/2015

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Almost twenty years in NW5, and the area still springs surprises. Today I went along to an open day at a nature reserve I didn't know existed. It's squeezed beside the railway line at Gospel Oak - at the back of Mortimer Terrace, a development which is itself hidden away off Wesleyan Terrace, at the back of the Southampton Arms on Highgate Road. Hope you've got that?!!

It's a handful of acres, wooded, on a sloping railway embankment. There's a pond - which a couple of local primary schools visit regularly. And a remarkable shed - a water capture mechanism - and a bit of a clearing where volunteers and visitors gathered on this glorious summer Sunday.

Terry, one of the volunteers (and our guide), with the water capture device in the background

This once housed a railway transformer - it's now been redesigned to be welcoming to insects

An aerial photo of the Mortimer Terrace nature reserve, which is just to the north of the railway lines. The big building in the middle is Heathview, a 1930s block of flats which is now a housing co-op. On the other side of Gordon House Road is Kwikfit. Gospel Oak station is just out of shot to the left. You can just see part of Mortimer Terrace development on the upper right.

The land is owned by a construction company, but they have said they are withdrawing the licence in August - though given that there's nothing even approaching vehicular access, it's difficult to see what they could do with the site. The London Wildlife Trust has said it hasn't the resources to continue to support this small, but splendid, nature reserve. So its future is in doubt.

The volunteers and those who live near by are clearly determined to save this special, hidden spot - let's hope they succeed.

Can you spot the tiny frog?

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St Martin's in all its gothic glory

26/3/2015

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St Martin's, Gospel Oak, is once again showing a glorious index finger to the world. This most maverick of London's parish churches has got its turret back. And on Easter Sunday, the minister Chris Brice is going to preside over a special service and ceremony to mark the full gothic restoration of this wonderfully mad piece of clerical architecture - not just the Grimms' style turret, but the four smaller corner pinnacles too.

So, the back story - this 1860s church was built through the munificence of a Midlands glove manufacturer, who turned to the distinctly outlandish Edward Buckton Lamb as the architect. He delivered Morris & Co stained glass, a truly amazing wooden roof, mosaic panels, alabaster everywhere - and a curiously narrow tower topped off with a range of pointy things which are more Liechtenstein than north London.

Bomb damage (which nearly did for the stained glass too) disturbed the turret and pinnacles, and those still in place in 1945 were too insecure to be left up there. But now Chris Brice has - and what a splendid achievement - not only raised the money to restore the tower to its original design (Lottery money helped, I believe), he's also managed to oversee execution of the work.

St Martin's is, as so rarely is the case for a Victorian parish church, Grade 1 listed - though among connoisseurs of ecclesiastical architecture, opinions vary. Pevsner described it as 'the craziest of London's Victorian churches' - and I'd go along with that - while Elizabeth and Wayland Young, less generously, compared it to a duck-billed platypus.

Whatever - it's lovely to see turret and pinnacles back on the Kentish Town skyline. Hallelujah!

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The HOPE chronicles

8/12/2013

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UPDATED January 2014 with the discovery of another 'HOPE' - details and photo at the foot of this post

Across my part of north London, which is awash with rail lines from the mainline stations heading north as well as the more homely North London Line, someone, some time, for some reason, has taken to painting 'HOPE' on bridges and track-side buildings. In white paint ... in large capital letters ... without any obvious purpose. It's a bit of a mystery.

What follows is not the full story - but we're getting there. And if you have anything to share about these HOPE inscriptions please do get in touch. Whatever the story is behind them, I am keen to find out.

I've mapped and snapped the various renditions of 'HOPE' which have appeared on and adjacent to railway bridges or overlooking railway lines across Kentish Town, Gospel Oak and around. And below are pictures of them all - the three (the orange dots on the map) most imposing renditions complete with serifs, those little embellishments which make capital letters stand out; six plainer versions (red dots), one of which is almost entirely scrubbed out but still just visible; and two (yellow above) other 'HOPES' - one in a very different style, and the other what you might call the only legitimate 'Hope' in Kentish Town.

I'm still trying to work out why this fly painting, by whom, and when - asking around, the consensus is that these are intended to inspire and uplift rather than simply a tag. And all being close to railways lines? Well as I say, there's a lot of them around this manor - so perhaps that's not too significant.

If you know more, do tell me: <awkashmir@gmail.com>

HOPE - the big three ...

1 - Athlone Street off Grafton Road

2 - The southern end of Kentish Town Road, a little north of the canal

3 - Mansfield Road near Gospel Oak station

HOPE - the other six ...

4 - Highgate Road, near the Southampton Arms

5 - On the footpath north of College Lane

6 - Overlooking the foot bridge over the rail lines by the side of Acland Burghley school

7 - Midland Road, north of St Pancras station

8 - York Way

9 - The side of Kentish Town station, still visible but only just (and see below)

... and while we're on about HOPE ...

10 - Athlone Street, the other side of the rail bridge from no. 1

11 - Hope Chapel, Church of Christ, on Prince of Wales Road - and no, it's not them that did it and, yes, I have asked

And if you wondered what the now barely legible HOPE overlooking 'Kentish Town Square' (no. 9 above) looked like in its heyday, here's an old photo courtesy of the excellent KentishTowner:

,,, and a late addition, spotted in January 2014

Just a matter of yards from two of the 'HOPE's above (numbers 4 and 5 on the map), I've found another one - not a new inscription, just one that I have failed to notice - though really it's difficult to miss.

This one - photographed on a damp and grey January afternoon (and yes in colour, but it was one of those days when everything was grey) - is just off Highgate Road, alongside the rail tracks and overlooking DarCars garage. It's not the most accomplished version - the slender vertical strokes and broad horizontal strokes don't really work. But it is another 'HOPE' - hallelujah!

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'Habemus Papem' in back street Gospel Oak

12/11/2013

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However remarkable St Martin's, Gospel Oak is today - the back story here - its original appearance was even more outlandish. The tower is now shorn of turret and steeples - largely the result of bomb damage. But this drawing of the original construction - from The Builder in 1866, and republished in the Camden History Society's excellent Streets of Gospel Oak - shows the church in its pristine glory. The brothers Grimm would have felt absolutely at home in late Victorian Gospel Oak.

And the original design is of more than antiquarian interest. The vicar, Chris Brice, tells me that Heritage Lottery Fund money will allow restoration of the tower's stone work - and the restitution of the missing spires (I'm not clear whether the turret will make a return, but no show - I suppose - without this remarkable ecclesiastical punch). The church is keen for any drawings which might give more detail of the original spires - if you know of any, do email the church or add a comment on this posting and I'll pass the information on

Here's the tower as it is today - bereft of late Gothic fancies. You can spot it from the Heath because of its narrow, incomplete, assymetrical appearance - and the St George's flag that flutters atop. A longstanding tradition which the parishioners are keen to cleave to, I'm told.

Parishioners were out in force yesterday evening, St Martin's Day, for the formal installation - technically, it's an institution and induction - of Chris Brice as vicar. He's been priest-in-charge for the past five years, so it was about time to regularise the arrangement.

The bishop was in attendance, replete with collapsible mitre (I always thought they were a bit more substantial) - and the patron - and amid much 'All Gas and Gaiters'-style flummery, which no one seemed to take especially seriously, the archdeacon (there was also a dean in attendance - I didn't refer to 'All Gas and Gaiters' lightly) led the new incumbent off to the (unused) main door, and placed the Rev's hand on the handle, declaring: "By virtue of this mandate, I do induct you into the real, actual and corporeal possession of this church and benefice."

All this happened out of view of a craning and slightly confused congregation - then, as if white smoke at St Peter's, the church bell began to toll. 'Habemus Papem', local C of E style. Chris Brice himself was pulling away at the bell rope 'to signify his taking possession of the Parish church'. Poor man!

And this, by clerical standards, is what's deemed to be low church. If all services were quite so enticing, I might attend more than once a decade.

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Seeking HOPE in Kentish Town

29/10/2013

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From the footbridge over the railway lines at the west side of Acland Burghley

There's an awful lot of hope in Kentish Town. H-O-P-E style hope. In a locality criss-crossed by railway lines, with more rail bridges to the acre than anywhere else on the planet, someone, sometime, has gone round giving us all, well, hope.

Mansfield Road near Gospel Oak station

The lettering style broadly matches - but in all four cases I've come across, there's nothing beyond 'HOPE' to indicate purpose ... is this a name, a brand, an aspiration, an instruction?

Athlone Street off Grafton Road

Somebody out there must know more. Who painted these, when and why? How many more 'hopes' are out there - and how many have been lost to history?

This blog has a mission to find out - if you can help, do please comment or email (awkashmir@gmail.com)

Kentish Town Road just north of the canal

And then there's at least one case of losing hope in Kentish Town - high on the wall at the site of Kentish Town station overlooking the tracks. There used to be a very prominent 'HOPE' there. For no obvious reason, it's been scrubbed away - but if you look really hard you can just make out the lettering. So there's still, yes, a bit of hope!

A faint trace of 'HOPE' on the side of Kentish Town station

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Crazy St Martin's - the 'duck-billed platypus' of churches

27/10/2013

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The 'craziest of London's Victorian churches', according to Nikolaus Pevsner - the only place of worship in my part of London to feature in Simon Jenkins' England's Thousand Best Churches - and it has a rare Grade 1 listing ... yet many of those even on its doorstep know little of St Martin's, Gospel Oak.

Gospel Oak - at least the part south of Mansfield Road - hasn't half been knocked about a bit. Oak Village and its westerly extension Elaine Grove are a wonderfully complete and serene survival of the more stylish sort of mid-Victorian terracing. The surrounding post-war estates - build on streets which were bombed out or cleared as slums - are rather less enchanting. And Lismore Circus, at what should be the heart of a reborn Gospel Oak, is about as fly blown as you'll find in inner London. But just a hundred yards away, on not so much a back street as a back-of-beyond street, is the magic of St Martin's.

You can see it from Kite Hill, indeed from much of the Heath - with a curious, awkward, incomplete-looking tower flying the St George's flag. 'I know few towers so tormenting as this one in proportion, modelling and silhouette', wrote the architectural historian Sir John Summerson. 'Most towers answer a question. This one asks.'

The tower must have been even more remarkable when the pinnacles which once adorned it were in place.

The interior is arguably even more outlandish: a spectacular roof - alabaster in profusion - and some exceptional William Morris Company stained glass that somehow survived the wartime raids (there's a railway line, and what was the Kentish Town depot, close at hand).

The building dates from 1865, and was the work of Edward Buckton Lamb, who was - as the church history notes - 'an idiosyncratic enthusiast for the late Perpendicular style, at a time when it was very much out of favour with the architectural establishment.' In other words, about as out-of-step as you could get and still be at the dance. And ever since St Martin's has astonished and agonised, as much as inspired, those within an expert eye on things ecclesiastical.

'To include this church', commented Elizabeth and Wayland Young in their London Churches - 'is not an expression of the authors' liking or approval; rather an expression of faith in the oddness of the human, and therefore of the divine, imagination. Thus must Adam have felt on first seeing the duckbilled platypus'. Ouch!

The Morris stained glass is marvellous. The interior has an ample measure of magic. And rather against the odds, the church has survived as a key part of the community.

St Martin's was established in the low church tradition and that - as best as I can tell - is where it remains. Just as Father Pope's Butterfield-designed St Mary, Brookfield - at another corner of NW5 - has remained resolutely high church.

The original vicarage at St Martin's hasn't survived. But the three-storey church hall (pictured) has - again an extraordinary piece of architecture for a north London side street. It's now, in this most Francophone corner of London, a French language nursery school and kindergarten.

LATER: And if you are curious about what St Martin's tower looked like with pinnacle attached, I've come across this image on the 'net.

Here it is courtesy of a photo from a 1952 volume of the Survey of London:

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=65675

Now I understand Pevsner, Summerson and their ilk a little bit better!

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Andrew Whitehead's
Blog

Rev. Chris heads out at Gospel Oak

St Martin's @ 150

A weekend's wanders ... or Cruising in St Pancras

A hidden, special corner of Gospel Oak

St Martin's in all its gothic glory

The HOPE chronicles

HOPE - the big three ...

HOPE - the other six ...

... and while we're on about HOPE ...

,,, and a late addition, spotted in January 2014

'Habemus Papem' in back street Gospel Oak

Seeking HOPE in Kentish Town

Crazy St Martin's - the 'duck-billed platypus' of churches

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HOPE - the big three ...

HOPE - the other six ...

... and while we're on about HOPE ...

,,, and a late addition, spotted in January 2014

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