Church Of St Michael And All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels, Hythe

This church was erected in 1893 as a Gothic style pre-fabricated tin tabernacle supplied by Messrs Humphries of Croydon, corresponding to number 47 in their catalogue. It was paid for by the Reverend F. T. Scott on land donated by the Watts family.

The building is constructed with exterior walls and roof of corrugated iron over a steel frame, with wooden windows throughout. The interior is boarded.

Due to the restricted triangular site at the junction of Stade Street and Portland Road, the church is aligned north to south. It comprises a nave with a bellcote and porch at the north end, transepts, an apsidal-ended chancel, and a further room added between 1907 and 1938 to the north of the eastern chancel, matching the original style.

The exterior features wooden pointed-arched windows with Y-tracery and mullions. The north gable end displays plain wooden bargeboards and a pendant. The square bellcote has a pyramidal roof with twentieth-century tiles and a wooden bell frame. The central north window contains three lights, with side windows of two lights. The projecting porch has a central gable with curved bargeboards decorated with a finial and trefoil ornaments. Below is a pointed-arched, ledged double plank door flanked by mullioned and transomed casements with similar windows in the returns. The west side has three pointed-arched windows and another to the transept, which has a gable with plain bargeboard. The east side has two pointed-arched windows, a transept with one pointed-arched window and plain bargeboard with finial, and a projecting gabled room with bargeboards, two pointed-arched windows and a pointed-arched plank door in the north return. The apsidal chancel has a metal cross at the junction with the nave and three Y-tracery windows of three lights each.

Internally, the north door leads into a vestibule with four-panelled doors opening into the church. The interior is boarded throughout and features a five-bay wooden roof with collars to the trusses and metal ties. A wide pointed chancel arch and adjoining arched entrance with a ledged plank door leads into the west transept, used as a vestry. A wider door on the east side opens into a room now used as an office, providing access to the east transept. The east transept now serves as a kitchen and has a similar ledged plank door. The chancel contains a carved wooden reredos with five panelled arches with ogee heads.

The church was built as a mission church to serve the rapidly expanding mainly working-class population of Hythe on the south side of the Royal Military Canal. The Parish Church of St Leonard's, Hythe was severely overcrowded, particularly during the holiday season. The Folkestone Express of 27 August 1892 reported that congregations were "packed like herrings in a box". In 1893, the Reverend T. G. Hall, vicar of St Leonard's, received the triangular site at the junction of Stade Street and Portland Road from the Watts family to build a new church. The entire cost of the building was met by the Reverend F. T. Scott, a former vicar of Hythe. The pre-fabricated iron church was ordered, erected within months, and dedicated on 19 September 1893. An oak altar was provided by a Mr Andrews, made from oak grown on his own land. At the opening ceremony, the Archdeacon of Mainstone dedicated the church to St Michael and All Angels and the Reverend Scott preached the sermon.

The Folkestone Express of 23 September 1893 noted that the church was built by Messrs Humphries of Croydon at a cost of approximately £300 and was lined with wood. It was intended to seat about 280 people, and the triangular shape of the site necessitated its north-south alignment with the altar facing south.

Originally the church had gas lighting, coke stoves, and a manual organ. The manual organ is now in St Peter's, Canterbury. The pews were removed during the twentieth century.

The building appears on the 1898 Ordnance Survey map with its present footprint except for the extension to the north of the transept, which was added after the 1907 Ordnance Survey map and before the 1938 Ordnance Survey map.