This article needs additional citations for verification .(May 2008) |
St Matthias Old Church | |
---|---|
![]() | |
![]() | |
Location | Poplar High Street, Poplar, London |
Country | United Kingdom |
Denomination | Church of England |
Architecture | |
Architect(s) | Robert Shirley William Milford Teulon |
St Matthias Old Church is the modern name given to the Poplar Chapel built by the East India Company in 1654, [1] in Poplar. The church is designated a Grade II* listed building. [2]
St Matthias Old Church is one of the very few extant churches built under the Commonwealth (others include those at Berwick-on-Tweed, Staunton Harold, Ninekirks and Brougham.)
In 1627 the East India Company (EIC) purchased a house in Poplar High Street to be used as a hospital for disabled seamen. In 1618 a corrupt jeweller, Hugh Greete, had been sent back from India for stealing stones. He died in prison in 1619, and directed that a school or hospital be founded from his estate. The Company had set up a shipyard in Blackwall in 1614, so neighbouring Poplar was the obvious choice for location. In 1633 the inhabitants of Poplar and Blackwall – largely employees of the EIC – requested that a chapel be built there as St Dunstan's, Stepney was too far away for them. When Gilbert Dethick, the Lord of the Manor of Poplar, died in 1639 he left a further £100 towards the building of the chapel, on the condition that work started within three years of his death.
The beginning of the work coincided with the outbreak of the English Civil War. William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury was executed in 1645 after being prominently involved in debates about church architecture and internal décor. With a further bequest from Sir John Gayer, a director of the EIC, and money direct from the Company, work got properly underway in 1652. The first payment was made to John Tanner, Master of the Bricklayers' Company in 1654, who became the principal builder.
The burial ground was allotted to the chapel in 1657. [1]
St Matthias is a brick building enhanced with stone quoins at the corners. It combines Classical and Gothic elements, similar to St Katherine Cree in the City of London, consecrated in 1631.
Internally, the barrel-vaulted roof is supported by eight Tuscan columns, seven of oak and one of stone. There is no evidence to support the story that they were made from ships' masts. This gives a Dutch flavour to the architecture reminiscent of Hendrick de Keyser who built several churches in Amsterdam in the early seventeenth century.
During the eighteenth century various changes were made: a tower added (1718), a triple-decker pulpit (1733) and extensive repairs and alterations to the windows in 1775–1776 (architect: Richard Jupp). In the early 19th century a mural monument to George Steevens by John Flaxman was commissioned; this is currently on loan to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
For many years the Chapel was used for prayers before mariners and passengers departed on what might prove to be a dangerous voyage. Many early migrants to British North America would have participated in these services, before leaving for an uncertain future abroad. It was also the chapel of the adjacent almshouses, home to the Poplar Pensioners, seamen retired from the EIC. Officers had premises up by the East India Dock Road, whereas the other ranks were located on Poplar High Street. Between 1841 and 1844 eight Asiatic sailors were buried in the churchyard. [1]
Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the EIC was wound up and Poplar Chapel became St Matthias, a Church of England parish church. Its first vicar was John Fenwick Kitto, appointed by Archibald Campbell Tait. [3] William Milford Teulon carried out substantial changes from 1867 to 1876: a modern pulpit, font and organ were installed, the building was clad in Kentish ragstone and a chancel, vestry and organ chamber were installed. Stained glass windows incorporating masonic imagery were installed in 1920 by East London lodges as a memorial to their brethren who had died in the First World War. [4] Poplar was heavily bombed during the Second World War, but St Matthias survived with only shards of shrapnel buried in some of the walls.
However, in the 1970s St Matthias merged with St Anne's, Limehouse; St Matthias was thriving but St Anne's, with much smaller congregations, was architecturally too prestigious to close. So the two churches joined, and the congregation of St Matthias moved to Limehouse. St Matthias' building was declared redundant in 1977 and deconsecrated. After several years of dereliction, English Heritage and the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) agreed to major restoration in 1990, with the agreed use being as an "Arts Centre". As the LDDC did not have the funding to match English Heritage, LDDC decided that its contribution should be part of the necessary 'Planning Gain' required for the West India Quay 7-acre (28,000 m2) site, which they were in the process of selling. The UK agents of the overseas purchaser, Cheval, refused to accept the 'Arts Centre' and demanded local involvement in determining future use as well as the establishment of a "sinking fund" to maintain St Matthias in perpetuity. In 1992 the St Matthias Conservation trust was set up to preserve the building and provide use as a community centre.
London Docklands is the riverfront and former docks in London. It is located in inner east and southeast London, in the boroughs of Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Lewisham, Newham, and Greenwich. The docks were formerly part of the Port of London, at one time the world's largest port. After the docks closed, the area had become derelict and poverty-ridden by the 1980s. The Docklands' regeneration began later that decade; it has been redeveloped principally for commercial and residential use. The name "London Docklands" was used for the first time in a government report on redevelopment plans in 1971 and has since been almost universally adopted. The redevelopment created wealth, but also led to some conflict between the new and old communities in the area.
The Isle of Dogs is a large peninsula bounded on three sides by a large meander in the River Thames in East London, England, which includes the Cubitt Town, Millwall and Canary Wharf districts. The area was historically part of the Manor, Hamlet, Parish and, for a time, the wider borough of Poplar. The name had no official status until the 1987 creation of the Isle of Dogs Neighbourhood by Tower Hamlets London Borough Council. It has been known locally as simply "the Island" since the 19th century.
Limehouse is a district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London. It is 3.9 miles (6.3 km) east of Charing Cross, on the northern bank of the River Thames. Its proximity to the river has given it a strong maritime character, which it retains through its riverside public houses and steps, such as The Grapes and Limehouse Stairs. It is part of the traditional county of Middlesex. It became part of the ceremonial County of London following the passing of the Local Government Act 1888, and then part of Greater London in 1965.
Poplar is a district in East London, England, now part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Five miles (8 km) east of Charing Cross, it is part of the East End.
Westferry is a station on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), at the junction of Limehouse Causeway and Westferry Road in Limehouse in London Docklands, England. The station is located in Travelcard Zone 2. To the west is Limehouse station, whilst to the east the DLR splits, with one branch going to Poplar station and the other to West India Quay station.
Bromley, commonly known as Bromley-by-Bow, is a district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London, located on the western banks of the River Lea, in the Lower Lea Valley in East London.
The West India Docks are a series of three docks, quaysides and warehouses built to import goods from and export goods and occasionally passengers to the British West Indies on the Isle of Dogs in London the first of which opened in 1802. Following their commercial closure in 1980, the Canary Wharf development was built around the wet docks by narrowing some of their broadest tracts.
The Lansbury Estate is a large, historic council housing estate in Poplar and Bromley-by-Bow in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is named after George Lansbury, a Poplar councillor and Labour Party MP.
The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) was a quango agency set up by the UK Government in 1981 to regenerate the depressed Docklands area of east London. During its seventeen-year existence, it was responsible for regenerating an area of 8.5 square miles (22 km2) in the London Boroughs of Newham, Tower Hamlets and Southwark. LDDC helped to create Canary Wharf, Surrey Quays shopping centre, London City Airport, ExCeL Exhibition Centre, London Arena and the Docklands Light Railway, bringing more than 120,000 new jobs to the Docklands and making the area highly sought after for housing. Although initially fiercely resisted by local councils and residents, today it is generally regarded as having been a success and is now used as an example of large-scale regeneration, although tensions between older and more recent residents remain.
The Limehouse Link tunnel is a 1.1-mile (1.8 km) long tunnel under Limehouse in East London on the A1203 road. The tunnel links the eastern end of The Highway to Canary Wharf in London Docklands. Built between 1989 and 1993 at a cost of £293,000,000 it has been calculated as the most expensive road scheme in Britain per mile, working out at £50,500 per foot at 2011 prices. It is the second largest non-estuarial road tunnel in the UK, after the Hindhead Tunnel in Surrey.
Commercial Road is a street in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End of London. It is 1.9 miles (3.1 km) long, running from Gardiner's Corner, through Stepney to the junction with Burdett Road in Limehouse at which point the route splits into the East India Dock Road and the West India Dock Road. It is an artery connecting the historic City of London with the more recently developed financial district at Canary Wharf, and part of the A13.
All Saints Church, Poplar, is a church in Newby Place, Poplar, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, and is the Church of England parish church of Poplar. It was built in 1821–3 to serve the newly created parish.
The Trinity Independent Chapel was an early Victorian church in Poplar. It was destroyed by a V-2 rocket hit during the Second World War, and later re-built in Modernist style. In the late 1990s the building was sold to the Calvary Charismatic Baptist Church, and since then has served as their Prayer Temple and international headquarters.
St. George's Church is a 19th-century Anglican church within George Town in the Malaysian state of Penang. The oldest purpose-built Anglican church in Southeast Asia, it was elevated by to the status of pro-cathedral in 2023. The church lies within the jurisdiction of the Upper North Archedeaconry of the Anglican Diocese of West Malaysia.
Coldharbour is a street and wider conservation area in Blackwall, lying on the north bank of the River Thames, east of Canary Wharf. The area is said to be "[t]he sole remaining fragment of the old hamlet of Blackwall" and "one of the last examples of the narrow streets which once characterised the river's perimeter".
George Green was a ship builder from Blackwall, London.
John Perry was the founder of the Blackwall Yard, where he built ships largely for the East India Company.
East India Dock Road is a major arterial route from Limehouse to Canning Town in London. The road takes its name from the former East India Docks in the Port of London. To the west it becomes Commercial Road and to the east Newham Way. It forms part of the A13, a major road connecting the historic City of London to Tilbury and Southend.
Meridian House is located on No. 115 Poplar High Street. It was built in 1801-2 by the East India Company, to house the chaplain serving the company's almshouses and chapel. The chapel later became the Church of St Matthias, and Meridian House its vicarage, in 1867. When the church closed in 1976, Meridian House was sold as a private residence. It is a Grade II listed building.
John Fenwick Kitto was an English Anglican clergyman and author. He founded and participated in various charitable causes, with a focus on London's East End. He served in positions including Rector of Whitechapel, Rector of Stepney, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and Honorary Chaplain to the Queen.