Children'S Church And Lych Gate At Barnardo'S

Children's Church and Lych Gate at Barnardo's, Tanners Lane, Barkingside

This Children's Church was built in 1892-4 by architect Ebenezer Gregg for Dr Barnardo. It has undergone later additions and alterations.

The church is constructed of stock brick with stone and red brick dressings, with a pitched tiled roof hipped to the chancel and asphalt roof coverings to the aisles. Although the building is not orientated to the east, the liturgical east end faces north-west. The plan comprises a square tower at the north-west corner, a porch to the south, a vestry to the north-east, and an organ chamber to the south-east, with an additional porch to the south-west added in 1933.

The tower is Tudor Gothic in style, featuring clasping buttresses, ogee-arched doors with fleur-de-lis peaks, and perpendicular tracery in the belfry. The tower parapet has a blind trefoil-headed arcade, and there were originally pinnacles with crockets at each corner, which have been lost. The nave displays Early English Gothic character, with three-light lancet windows at the west end and in the aisles and clerestory. The east end has three three-light windows, with the middle one taller and set in a gablet that breaks through the eaves of the hipped roof.

Inside, the five-bay nave has been partitioned in the late 20th century at the two westernmost bays to create a large meeting room separated from the nave by a concertina screen. Stone aisle arcades have polygonal columns and pointed arches. The roof features curved timber braces resting on stone corbels. The diminutive pews designed specially for children survive, along with additional pews brought from the Woodford Bridge Village Home for Boys after its closure and demolition. The nave has a woodblock floor with quarry tiles to the aisles. A Gothic tracery timber pulpit with steps and tester survives. The balustrade in metal and timber may have been renewed but matches the altar rail. A brass eagle lectern is present. The chancel arch is stone with an inscription painted around it reading "Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not", quoting Luke chapter 18 verse 16 and Matthew chapter 19 verse 14. The chancel has a pattern tile floor, metal altar rails, and a clergy seat with trefoil panels, although its original choir stalls have been lost. The panelling behind the altar is not original and probably dates to the interwar period. The organ was made by Spurden Rutt of Leyton in 1935. Two memorials are set in the chancel wall: a brass plaque to Dr Barnardo and a marble plaque to John William Godfrey, the Village's first governor. The two westernmost aisle bays have been enclosed at the west end to serve as a kitchen and toilets, though the stained glass in these areas survives and the pews have been removed. The tower contains eight bells, six cast by the Whitechapel Foundry in 1894 and two in 1926, which were restored in 2005.

The stained glass in the east end and aisle windows depicts scenes from the Bible, saints, and figures from history, with particular emphasis on subjects involving women (Joan of Arc, Florence Nightingale, Saints Margaret and Elizabeth) and children (Saint Christopher and the infant Christ, Christ preaching to children). Inscriptions in the sills of the east end windows reveal the stained glass was donated by Barnardo's staff in 1936 in memory of a colleague. Elsewhere, the glass is clear with diamond leaded panes.

A lych-gate stands in front of the south porch, featuring brick walls and an open-sided timber structure above supporting a tiled roof. Small benches are set inside the lych-gate, which retains its original timber gates.

The church was built as a gift from an anonymous donor in memory of her parents. It served Dr Thomas John Barnardo's Village Home, established in 1876 after Barnardo arrived in Barkingside in 1874, having been given Mossford Lodge as a wedding present by Sir John Sands. Barnardo's evangelical charity focused on destitute children of London's East End, and he began building a series of cottages arranged around a green, each under the care of a "Mother", to provide a domestic, familial environment. This church embodied the evangelical piety that underpinned the Village Homes settlement, and Barnardo's was among the first charities to accept children of any colour or creed. By Barnardo's death in 1905, there were sixty-four cottage homes arranged around three greens, built during 1876-80, 1887, and 1903-5.