Stained Glass of Percy Bacon & Brothers

St Michael and All Angels Church, Little Ilford circa 1906 after extension. Partial scaffolding can be seen at the north end (liturgical east - the church was orientated physically north-south) suggesting building was nearing completion. This image was taken from the south side of Romford Road, opposite the junction with Toronto Road.

From a postcard in the author's collection. PD Image.

Charles Spooner's plan of the new church with an overlay showing the extent of the initial build and temporary chancel and vestries.

Charles Spooner's plan of the new church with overlay removed. This shows the full extent of the initial plan.

Charles Spooner's revised plan c1905/6 showing the new heating chamber.

Drawing of the church by Charles Spooner, 1897.
Source: The Builder Vol 73, 16 October 1897, p308.

Drawing of the chancel by Charles Spooner, 1899.
Source: The Builder Vol 77, 28 October 1899, p404.

Interior of the church c1907 following completion of the chancel and permanent vestries.

St Michael & All Angels, Little Ilford, circa 1906 after extension. Partial scaffolding
can be seen at the north end (liturgical east) suggesting building was nearing
completion.

Posted 02 October 2023.

Until 1894 the church of St Mary the Virgin, Little Ilford was the only church in the parish of that name. This church was small, accommodating less than 140 souls, and inadequate for the 500 or so reported to then be living in the growing parish.¹ That population would grow rapidly over the coming years. In 1894 a mission hall to St Mary’s built of iron was opened on Romford Road, close to the Three Rabbits Hotel at a cost of £200.² In 1897, under the energetic Rev. Percy Matheson Bayne (who also oversaw the building of St Barnabas in Ilford), the architect Charles Sydney Spooner (1862-1939) was commissioned to design a new church on a site provided by Charles Bartholomew, a local land owner,³ this time to be built of brick.

Works commenced in May of 1897,⁴ but initially, due to lack of funds to complete the works, only the nave and aisles were built, with a chancel being added in 1906.^{5 6} Spooner’s 1898 plans were therefore annotated with temporary vestries and chancel (see the slide show for more details). The early church had provision for two stoves in the temporary vestries either side of the chancel, but the later plan of c1905/6 showed a heating chamber under the new clergy vestry.

Canon Clarke described the interior of the church thus:

St Michael and All Angels Church, Little Ilford interior. PD Image.

Newspaper cutting for the interior of St Michael's circa
1906/7 after completion of the chancel.

Pevsner described the chancel arch as, “tall”, and having, “noble proportions, with tall giant wall-arcading”.⁸ The finished church had a wide nave and aisles, spanned by a single roof, a chancel with a narrow aisle on each side, side chapel on the south, vestries and an organ chamber on the north, an a baptistry with two porches at the west end (all compass points refer to the liturgical, not geographical). The church was lighted by a seven light west window, and a large three-light window in each bay of the aisles. A tall, slender spire covered with cast lead carried the bells. The mullions and jambs of the windows were of bath stone, with red brick arches and stone springers. The building works were carried out by Messrs Cornish and Gayner of North Walsham.

The new church was consecrated by the Bishop of St Albans on 19th March 1898.⁹ As was often the case funds were tight, with a deficit of £1000 owing on completion. Initially, all windows were plain, and filled with tinted cathedral glass. The church was demolished in c1992, and a new, smaller modern church within the Froud Community Centre was built on the same site.¹⁰ Some of the stained glass was recovered from the old church and installed in the new.

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Stained glass in the new church, recovered from the old church.

The window located in the baptistry of the new church.
Photo © John Salmon. Creative Commons license CC BY-SA 2.0 Deed

Percy Bacon & Brothers window of 1906/7.
Possibly installed in the baptistry.

The stained glass by Percy Bacon & Brothers which was saved when the old church was demolished has been installed in the baptistry area of the new church. The figures represent the Blessed Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist, in what appears to be part of a crucifixion scene. It is therefore not clear whether this is the complete window or the central element is missing. It is not known in which of the windows of the old church these lights are derived, but it is likely that this stained glass was originally installed when the old church was completed in 1906.

Above the figures scrolls are inscribed with the words:

BVM: Woman, behold thy son.
John: Behold thy mother.

This further suggests that these lights were once part of a three-light crucifixion scene.

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1. Essex Guardian - Saturday 06 April 1895, p8.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid
4. Eastern Counties' Times - Saturday 29 May 1897, p5.
5. Essex Newsman - Saturday 17 November 1906, p3.
6. The Builder: Vol 73, 16 October 1897, p308.
7. Institutions of the Church. Canon Clarke available at Lambeth Palace Library.
8. Pevsner, Essex (Rev. E. Radcliffe), 1965, p166.
9. Chelmsford Chronicle - Friday 25 March 1898, p2.
10. https://faithinnewham.co.uk/church-of-england/.