Building    From 1864  To 1952

Upton Chapel, Barkham Terrace

Categories: Religion

During the period 1785 -1862 a group of Particular Baptists used a house in what is now Burrell Street, SE11. They rebuilt it in 1801 and then in 1862 they had a new chapel built in Barkham Terrace. This 1872 map shows the chapel flanked on either side by 9 terraced houses and an end lodge. 

A listing entry for the eastern lodge has: "It is possible that Smirke or Hardwick ... designed Barkham Terrace and its two lodges which were erected in 1842 ... The terrace was named after Edward Barkham, an C18 benefactor of the Bethlehem Hospital. The present building, 2 Barkham Terrace, was the eastern one of two single-storey lodges at either end of the terrace. The centre of the terrace was demolished {but see our 'Note' at the end} to make way for the Union Baptist Chapel, built in 1864 to the designs of JE Goodchild (demolished in 1952) ...".  Architect John E. Goodchild, was employed by Cockerell for over 25 years.

The chapel was named after its first preacher, James Upton. In 1941, following bomb damage to their chapel, the congregation united with that at Christ Church as "Christ Church and Upton Chapel". The chapel was demolished in 1952.

(For the record: the Burrell Street building was demolished to make way for the railway which is still there today, crossing Burrell Street.)

We could (initially) find no image of Upton Chapel but luckily it does appear on a photo we have already published, on the page for St George's Obelisk, in Barkham Terrace.

2024: Christian Ingham kindly pointed us to this Historic England 1940 photo of Barkham Terrace which shows the Upton Chapel. The source has good zoom functionality and an extensive caption which led us to the ever-informative Lost Hospitals of London which tells the story of the hospital in Barkham Terrace in some detail. Here is a 2-paragraph summary:

The Catholic Nursing Institute was officially opened on 23rd May 1907. It consisted of a house on the eastern side of Barkham Terrace for use by district nurses and a house on the western side with 12 beds for hospital patients. In 1929 the CNI purchased the whole terrace, excluding the chapel. By 1932 the hospital had expanded into 2 more houses in the terrace.

1939 the whole western side of the terrace was demolished, and the hospital completely rebuilt in 1940. You can see the scaffolding in this photo. September 1940 a bomb demolished half the hospital and severely damaged the chapel. In 1948 the hospital did not join the NHS. Rebuilding was carried out 1952. In 1960 the house on the eastern side was still the centre of the District Nursing service provided by the Sisters for south-east London. The CNI closed in 1984 and the hospital building has manifested as a few different private clinics/hospitals since then.

Looking at the architecture of the western side: the attractive 1940 hospital frontage seems to have survived the bomb; the 6 eastern bays, which replaced the chapel in 1952, are much plainer.

Note: prior to finding the listing entry we had thought that when Barkham Terrace was first erected, a gap had been left in the centre for an anticipated church.  It was surprising to read in the listing that houses were demolished in order to insert the chapel. Surely the Baptists could have found a cheaper, vacant, site that would not have incurred the additional expense of demolishing 3 or 4 houses?  Also, from the 1872 map, the width of the chapel plot is not an exact multiple of the uniform width of the terraced houses. This could only be explained if one, or all 3, of the central houses were wider than the others.

We raised this query with Christian and he forwarded an 1844 map extract which shows the two sides of the terrace with a vacant gap where the church would later be built - exactly as we had initially assumed.  The map is Laurie's Map of London: Vauxhall and Kennington, 1844. Christian also shared with us an 1839 Smirke design for the terrace which shows that the intention at that time was for the terrace to have a church at the centre. Although that particular design was not built we'd argue that its main feature - a gap in the terrace for a church - was retained. And 22 years later the Baptists built the church.

Sources: Much of Christian's research was at the Museum of the Mind. He found the 1844 map extract in a March 2021 Heritage Statement submitted in support of the application for planning permission for the proposed extension of the East Lodge, 2, Barkham Terrace, SE1. We'd expect this Statement also to be held in Southwark’s archive of planning applications.

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