Methodist Church

Methodist Church, Mitcham

A Methodist church completed in 1959 to designs of around 1950 by Edward Mills and Partners (architects) and Ove Arup and Partners (engineers).

The church comprises a chapel and hall placed at right angles to each other on the south and east sides of a grassed courtyard overlooking Cricket Green. A range of classrooms runs perpendicular to the north end of the hall. The chapel features an exposed reinforced concrete frame of seven-by-four bays with pale yellow brick infill walls and painted softwood windows. Most striking is the folded concrete slab roof, which extends beyond the chapel's north wall to incorporate an external walkway. The concrete piers supporting this walkway form part of the main chapel frame. The walkway provides direct access to the chapel itself via a concrete slab canopy at its west end, and to the hall at the east end. The chapel is rectangular in plan with a full-width western atrium containing floor-to-ceiling glazing.

The hall and classroom ranges are flat-roofed with load-bearing brick walls and are simpler in composition and detailing, with interior fittings typical of their period. Special architectural interest is concentrated in the church itself.

Internally, the chapel displays fair-faced brickwork with rectangular riven York stone slab facings on the east wall behind the communion area. The six-bay chapel is windowless at the western end, then has four bays with glazing to the upper portions and small square windows at eye level. The east end is illuminated by full-height glazing in the final bay on the south side only. The ceiling is clad in narrow strips of cedar and the floor comprises small hardwood blocks.

Original fittings survive in the majority, all designed by Mills. These include wood bench pews and choir stalls, organ pit with organ, altar rail, east end wooden cross, lectern, and pulpit. The original lighting has been lost since 1959.

Edward Mills was the foremost architect of post-war Methodist churches in England, designing fourteen new churches including Greenwich (1953), Loundsley Green, Chesterfield (1965), and Trinity, Woking (1965), as well as the cathedral at Mbale, Uganda. Mills was himself a Methodist, and his approach to church design was underpinned by his faith. In his book 'The Modern Church' published in 1956, he advocated the importance of a church as a community centre. A preliminary design for Mitcham shown in the book depicted the church with community hall and classrooms arranged around a cloister. As built, Mitcham Methodist Church differs from these plans, but the essential concept of a combined community centre and church arranged around a courtyard was retained.

When planning the church, Mills was a strong advocate for a Modernist idiom. He told the clients he favoured 'a frankly contemporary design using present-day materials and methods of construction, and endeavouring to present through this means an honest expression of the purpose of the building so designed.' Mitcham Methodist Church was the most widely-published of Mills' church designs, featuring in his own book and various architectural journals. It was one of three English churches showcased in 'The New Churches of Europe' (1964) by GE Kidder Smith, alongside St Paul's Bow Common and Coventry Cathedral.

Mills also designed residential and industrial buildings, notably the canteen at the Rhone-Poulenc factory in Dagenham, which became one of the first post-war buildings to be listed. He contributed to the design of elements at the Festival of Britain site including the administration building. His obituary in the Architects Journal described him as 'a post-war pioneer of concrete design'.