Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church,
Hungerford, is at the north-west corner of Priory Road and Lourdes
Crescent which itself is opposite Hillside Road. The first church was
a corrugated iron, single-storey prefabricated hall, built in 1939.
The congregation used this until the present red brick,
red-tile-roofed building was erected in 2013-14. Funds were raised
by building and selling the crescent of houses surrounding it. The
design was by Jeremy Bell of JBKS Architects.
The former Ebenezer Chapel (Wesleyan) sits
on the northern side of Church Street, with an entrance that lies
directly opposite Prospect Place, but with the building set back
behind a large modern house. A Wesleyan chapel was opened here early
in the 1800s (possibly in a private house), and was enlarged in
1807. With numbers increasing, a grander building was opened in 1869
on Charnham Street (see links), and this building became a day and
Sunday School.
The Parish Church of St Lawrence Hungerford
sits at the north-west corner of Parsonage Lane, north both of the
main line railway and the town itself, with the Kennet & Avon
Canal on its northern flank. A church stood on this site from the
thirteenth century. No precise record of it seems to have survived,
only a fragment of stonework. Samuel Prout drew it in 1811 to supply
basic details: chancel, clerestoried nave and aisles, north transept,
embattled west tower.
In 1811 an Act of Parliament was granted to
repair the old building. The tower was in a bad way and this was
rebuilt first but, in February 1814, 'most of the ancient part of
the roof and body of the church fell down'. A new building had to be
considered instead. In 1816 construction of the present Gothic
building was completed, although it was regarded in A History of
the County of Berkshire of 1924 as 'an uninteresting building'.
The font belongs to the previous building.
The remains of North Standen Chapel stood
in the grounds of North Standen Farm (now 'House'), to the north-east
of the farm itself (this view looks down the main drive). The ruins
date to the thirteenth century, but by 1924 they were part of a barn.
This was preserved until after the war (as shown on OS maps), but
today's layout seems to show an entirely different building on the
same site. The nave was a small rectangle while there seems to have
been no tower.
South Standen Chapel stood within the
grounds of Standen Manor, accessed via a private drive on the
western side of the A338 (as shown here), about two kilometres south
of Hungerford. It was dedicated to St Faith and was granted about
1165 by Henry Hussey to Dureford Abbey. In 1450 the chapel survived
in use, and was probably rebuilt by Sir Reynold Bray. By 1806 it had
been converted into a pigeon house and was pulled down soon after
the estate was sold on.
Two photos on this page by P L Kessler, and
two kindly contributed by Hungerford Virtual Museum.
