ONGAR HUNDRED 



LOUGHTON 



additional endowment of St. Mary's Loughton, and for 

 charitable purposes not connected with the parish. 



Frederick Joseph Brand, by will proved 1940, left 

 j^ioo duty-free in trust for distribution each Christmas 

 among the choirboys of St. John's. There is no further 

 record of this charity at the Charity Commission. 



The Roman Catholic church, Traps Hill, dedicated 



to St. Edmund of Canterbury, 



ROMAN was built in 1926-7.99 The 



CATHOLICISM church of St. Thomas More, 



Debden, was opened in 1953.' 



In 1672 Joseph Brown, who had been ejected from 

 the vicarage of Nazeing in 

 PROTESTANT 1662, was licensed to 



NONCONFORMITY minister to a congrega- 

 tion of Presbyterians at 

 Loughton.^ 



On 3 October 1813 a small nonconformist chapel 

 was opened at the south end of High Road. The 

 preachers at the opening were the Revds. J. Hughes of 

 Battersea, J. Clayton of Camomile Street, London 

 (E.C. 3), and G. Collinson of Walthamstow.3 In 

 1 8 17 Samuel Brawn, formerly of Stepney Academy, 

 was ordained minister.* The church supported the 

 Baptist Union, though it was not at first affiliated to it.5 

 Brawn remained until 1868.* In 1829 he reported a 

 congregation of 175.' A new church was built in 

 1 860-1. It cost £1,800, of which j^i,4oo had already 

 been raised by the opening day.* This was attended in 

 the i86o's by W. T. Whitley, later a distinguished 

 Baptist minister and historian. He gave some of his 

 reminiscences of the church in 'A Scenario of Baptist 

 Essex'.' "He mentioned the arrival of a new minister 

 (W. Bentley, 1868) to help Samuel Brawn. The old 

 minister watched his assistant from an armchair on the 

 platform, 'snorting at any questionable doctrine'. 

 Whitley helped to collect for the church soup kitchen. 

 His mother did missionary work among the gipsies of 

 Epping Forest. 



In 1880 the church had 193 members and 210 

 Sunday school children, with a minister and two 

 evangelists.'" It was and remains one of the strongest 

 nonconformist churches in the district. Membership 

 was 181 in 1900 and the Sunday school had risen to 

 356." In 1920 there were 21 1 members.'^ A decline 

 to 164 in 1930 has subsequently been reversed and in 

 195 1 there were 181 members and 143 pupils.'^ 

 Except for brief vacancies there has always been a 

 resident minister. Although still closely connected 

 with the Baptist Union the church is now a united 

 free church, known as Loughton Union Church. 



Associated with the church are the Lincoln Alms- 

 houses.'* Henry Lincoln, by his will proved in 191 2, 

 left £1,300 in trust to build five small almshouses to 

 be let at low rents to people over 50 years old who had 

 attended the church for the past ten years. The alms- 

 houses were built opposite the church. The sum of 

 £99 17/. was received during the Second World War 

 in local savings weeks, and the income from this. 



together with £20 16/. in rents from four cottages, and 

 with donations, brought in £1 16 i is. \d. in 1950. It 

 was all spent on repairs and maintenance. 



The founder of Methodism in Loughton was 

 Edward Pope, who came to the district in 1873, when 

 the nearest Methodist church was at Wanstead.'s In 

 that year he took over a small disused chapel in Englands 

 Lane.'* Among the first converts were Mr. and Mrs. 

 Fred Smith, whose nephews later became the famous 

 gipsy evangelists. The chapel was placed on the plan 

 of the Hackney (Wesleyan) Methodist circuit in 1874 

 and five years later became part of the newly formed 

 Wanstead and Woodford circuit. In 1880 land was 

 purchased on a more central site in Forest Road, and 

 an iron church erected there, at a total cost of £697. 

 In 1885 the land was sold for £250 and a new site in 

 the High Road was bought for £300. The iron church 

 soon proved inadequate and in 1903 a new brick 

 church with a schoolroom was built for £3,300, of 

 which £1,000 was borrowed from an insurance 

 company. This church was opened in 1903 (see plate 

 facing p. 1 13). 



In 1934 the minister at Buckhurst Hill (see Chig- 

 well) was transferred to Loughton at the request of the 

 latter church. In 1934 also it was decided to build a 

 new hall behind the church on land given nine years 

 before by Sir Joseph Lowrey.'^ The hall was opened 

 in 1936. It cost £3,880, of which £2,024 were 

 raised by donations. In 1944 it was totally destroyed 

 by a bomb, and other church premises were badly 

 damaged. 



In 1946 further land was bought and a scheme was 

 drawn up for the rebuilding of the hall. The work 

 was to be done in three stages. The second of these 

 was completed in June 1952, when the new Wesley 

 Hall was opened. The present (1953) membership 

 of the church is 159. The church is of red brick in 

 gothic style. The chapel in England's Lane still exists, 

 having been converted into dwellings called Kirk 

 Cottages. It is a small building of stock brick probably 

 dating from the middle of the 19th century and some- 

 what similar in appearance to the former Congrega- 

 tional Chapel at Abridge (in Lambourne, q.v.).'* 



In June 1946, on the recommendation of the 

 Methodist General Purposes Committee, it was 

 decided to negotiate for a site on the new London 

 County Council estate at Debden. In 1949 a trust was 

 formed and in 1950 land was offered by the L.C.C. 

 for £785. The first part of the building, costing- 

 £7,000, was opened in July 1952. The money came 

 from compensation for a bombed church in Waltham- 

 stow. In March 1953 it was decided to apply for a 

 deaconess. The church is at present under the super- 

 vision of the Loughton minister and has a member- 

 ship of 19. 



Soon after the Methodists moved to Forest Road 

 their former chapel in England's Lane was taken over 

 by the Baptists, who held services there under the 

 leadership of James Herbert Tee, a local solicitor, from 



w Kelly't Dir. Essex (1933). 



■ Cath.Dir. (1954.), 128. 



> G. L. Turner, Orig. Rea. of Early 

 Nonconformity^ ii, 929. 



3 Evang. Mag. xxii, 66. For the site 

 see Waller, Loughton^ i, 145. 



* Baptist Mag. 1818, 39. 



s W. T. Whitley, Baptists of London, 

 147; Bapt. Handhlt. 1869. 



' Ibid. 



' E.R.O., Q/CR 3/2. 



' Bapt. Mag. i860, 453; ibid. 1861, 

 165. 



9 Bapt. Hist. Soc. Trans, n.s. x, 56. 



'0 Bapt. Handbk. 1880. 



" Ibid. 1900. '2 Ibid. 1920. 



'3 Ibid. 1930, 1951. 



'« Char. Com. Files. 



'5 The following account is based on an 

 address by A. W. Leach at Wanstead, 

 Dec. 1919 (reported in Mins. of Local 

 Preachers Mtg., Wanstead and Wood- 



123 



ford Circuit), Trust Deeds and other 

 church records. Cf. also Methodism in 

 Loughton igo3—53 (Jubilee pamphlet). 



"6 It is said to have been a Congrega- 

 tional chapel. Nothing is known of its 

 earlier history. 



" He was Director of the Salvage 

 Association, London, and lived at the 

 Hermitage, Loughton. 



»8 It was built after 1850: cf. E.R.O., 

 D/CT 225. 



