The House of Faith Elim Way Church is on
the east side of Elim Way (about forty metres along), which itself
is opposite the cemetery entrance on Grange Road (below). Only the
very start of the street exists on the OS 25-inch 1892-1914 map, as
a gap between terraced housing. Post-war, a through road connected
Grange Road to today's Bethell Avenue and a 'ruin' existed on the
chapel site. By 2011 what was Elim Fellowship Church had been
given its current name.
East London Cemetery & Crematorium Chapel
is reached via the main entrance on Plaistow's Grange Road. The
cemetery opened in 1872, with a site that covers 13.4 hectares. Both
chapels can seat seventy, with standing room for a further thirty
and each has an organ. The cremation chapel is non-denominational,
decorated in a simple, elegant style. The burial chapel has been
consecrated by the Church of England, traditionally decorated with
stained-glass windows.
The Calvary Church of God in Christ (Bethany
Assembly), Plaistow, is on the eastern side of Chesterton Road
at its western end, and immediately south of the junction with
Chesterton Terrace. A converted Victorian house, in 2011 when this
shot was taken the mission was 'temporarily closed'. By 2018 the
building had been overhauled, painted entirely in white, and renamed
the Church of God in Christ, Congregational Independent, House of
Refuge.
The lost St Cuthbert's Church, Florence
Road in Plaistow, was the third of the mission churches to be founded
by St Stephen's, being opened in 1902. It is shown on relevant OS
maps as a mission hall on the corner of Salmen Road, two blocks
farther down from the site shown here which was home to the later
St Mary's Hospital. The mission hall was bombed during the Second
World War and was not rebuilt. The site was sold to the borough
council to be used for flats.
Plaistow's Salvation Army Citadel. Upper
Road, sat on the southern side, near the High Street. Salvation Army
work started at nearby Canning Town in 1872. It spread into Plaistow
in 1873, and the Upper Road hall was registered in 1875. This was
still in use in 1966 but by 2013 it was boarded up and closed, and
remained as such in 2018. A young people's hall was opened briefly
in The Broadway at the other end of Plaistow High Street between
1903 and 1904.
St Mary's Church, Plaistow, lay between
St Mary's Road and May Road to the north of the High Street. It was
built in 1830 as a chapel-of-ease to All Saints West Ham on a site
given by Sir John H Pelly. The first building was in brick in a late
Perpendicular style with pinnacled turrets. The church in this
photograph replaced it in 1894. A separate parish was formed in 1844
and a great deal of mission work from here led to the formation of
more churches and new parishes.
These missions included St Katherine,
Chapman Road, temporarily opened in 1891 in what previously was a
school, rebuilt in 1894, and demolished in 1965; and St
Thomas on nearby Northern Road, built 1898 and demolished about
1950. As for the second St Mary's building, it was found to be too
large for post-war congregations and was demolished around 1977 in
favour of the present smaller building which opened in 1981 on the
site of the former hall.
North Street Hall was on North Street
itself. It began with a Baptist mission of 1796, held in private
houses in Plaistow. In 1807 a group of Independents and Baptists
opened this hall and they unified in 1812. They opened Balaam Street
Church in 1860 (see links) to replace the hall which was taken by
Plymouth Brethren in 1903. This may have been their Welcome Mission
Hall in North Street, registered in 1923. Later part of Curwen
Press it was still there in 1970.
Newham United Reformed Church, West Ham,
is at 663 Barking Road, midway between Credon Road and Samson Street
on the west side. It began in 1886 with independent Primitive Methodists
who became Congregationalists in 1888. Their small Samson Street
Chapel was replaced in 1892 with an iron church here on Barking
Road. Now called Greengate Church, it was joined by Balaam
Street members in 1943. The building was bombed in 1945 and replaced
in 1949-56.
St Martin's Church, West Ham, lies along
Boundary Road, close to the south-western corner with Claughton
Road on the boundary between Plaistow and West Ham. Originally built
as a mission church in 1894 it tended to the needs of some of the
more distant parishioners of St Andrew's Church in Plaistow (see
links). For a period between the two world wars it served a
conventional district, but later reverted to its original status
as a mission church.
Eight photos on this page by P L Kessler (from
2010-2011), and one kindly contributed by the London Borough of
Newham.