St Joseph's Catholic Church is on Grange
Park Road. The family of Thomas More (1531-1606) were the most
notable Catholics in Leyton from 1582 when they settled in a house
which is now the cricket ground. Thomas himself was in prison from
1582 to 1586. In 1676 no 'papists' were reported in Leyton, but by
1766, and again in 1810, many Irish Catholics were in the parish. St
Joseph's started afterwards as part of the Westminster Archdiocese
under Cardinal Vaughan.
The first baptism took place on 1 November 1881,
although there was no Catholic church until a mission was founded in
February 1897. The first services were held in the chapel of St
Agnes school and orphanage (Etloe House, Church Road). A temporary
iron church opened in 1904 in Primrose Road (and was torched by
vandals in 1990). The permanent Church of St Joseph was opened in
1924, but was not consecrated until 1930, when all debt on the
building was cleared.
The Yada Christian Ministries' Church of God of Prophecy
is on Vicarage Road where it meets Brewster Road. This is almost
certainly the site of the former St Philip's Mission Church,
an iron building which opened in 1897 and which is described as
being on Brewster Road, although its exact location cannot be
confirmed. A mission church for St Mary's, the iron church closed in
1954. This Pentecostal movement later purchased the site and rebuilt
the frontage.
Calvary Charismatic Baptist Church is
further north on Vicarage Road from the Church of God of Prophecy.
It was originally opened in 1875 as Vicarage Road Baptist Church,
Leyton. It was built with the support of the London Baptist
Association on a site given to them by a resident Baptist pastor by
the name of E J Farley, who was alarmed at the 'spiritual
destitution' of the neighbourhood. In 1894 a larger schoolroom was
built as an addition to the church.
All Saints Church, Leyton is on
the corner of Capworth Street and Melbourne Road, with a design straight from the post-war years,
although when it replaced the original 1864 church building is
unknown. The church was opened as a chapel of ease to St Mary's Church
in Leyton on a
site donated by Edward Warner. Built in brick, in the 'Decorated'
style, it consisted of nave, chancel, and transepts, but its tall,
steeply-pitched roof had to be re-laid in 1884.
In 1886 a new parish was formed for the church
which included part of St James, Walthamstow. In 1883 a Sunday
school for six hundred children was opened beside the church. A new
vestry was added in 1903-1904, but in 1935 the parish of Emmanuel
was taken from All Saints (see next photo). The following year,
among other alterations, a new baptistery was made on the north-west
side of the church, but whether the church survived the war
unscathed is not known.
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