Christ Church dominates the triangular Village Green

CONTENTS

Introduction

Consecration of the Church

Church Clock

Rev Alan Benjamin Cheales

Church Organ

Restoration

Church Bells

Lych Gate

Church Furnishings

Church Windows

Diocese of Southwark

Electric Light

Designed by Benjamin Ferrey, Christ Church was built in 1846 in the '13th century cruciform style with an effective polychrome of firestone walls and limestone dressings. Simple honest interior, much more solid than Ferrey's normal style.' The stained glass window in the nave depicting Faith, Hope, etc, is mid century by Mayer of Munich and to quote leading architect Nikolaus Pevsner - 'bad but typical'.

Christ Church was built in as a memorial to the son of Rt Hon Henry Goulburn a senior parliamentary statesman.

The site for the church was donated by Henry Hope Thomas.

It is reported that during the construction of the church, there was a discussion about whether brick, flint or local stone should be the material, but an offer was made by Sir Benjamin Brodie to give all the stone required to the walls and this was felt to be too generous an offer to be rejected. Every possible care was taken to select the best stone and an immense quantity of it was set aside as unfit for use. It is, perhaps, unfortunate that the offer was made since much of the problems related to the church are linked to the quality of the stone that was not rejected.

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Consecration of the Church

The church was consecrated by the Bishop of Winchester in 1847. At that time, Christ Church was a daughter church of St. Michael's, Betchworth. By 1868, the Parish had become a separate district for ecclesiastical purposes and the incumbent was, by then, a Vicar.

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Church Clock

Johnson Batchelar (1800-1890), was from a family of builders and lived near the Church. He relates a story about the church clock.

“After the church was built, Mr George Tickner and I were talking near the church. Henry Thomas Hope came along and told us that he had a three-quarter clock that he would give to the church if we thought the inhabitants would accept of it and he would give £20 towards cleaning and putting it up. Of course we said how pleased and thankful we should all be of such a useful gift. James Freshfield Esq of Mythnhurst, Leigh thought the bell much too small for the church and he very kindly took away the old bell and gave us a much larger one.”

The clock had orginally belonged to Betchworth Castle which Henry Thomas Hope bought and dismantled in 1834. According to Gillett & Johnson who repaired the clock in 1900, the movement was then about 100 years old. It had a history of trouble and in 1848 £94 had to be collected for repairs and a new bell. The service bell in use today was the hour bell of the first clock and it was retained as a singing bell when the carillon was installed in 1936. The present electric clock was provided by public subscription in 1936 and its dials were re-gilded in celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee.

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Reverend Alan Benjamin Cheales

The Reverend Alan Benjamin Cheales is one of Brockham's most renowned personalities. He was read in on 8th May 1859 and stayed until 1892. He was actively involved in all Village life, as was his family.

In Nov 1868, the Parish of Christ Church Brockham became a separate District for Ecclesiastical purposes and the incumbent, Rev A B Cheales, a Vicar.

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Church Organ

In 1874, The organ had not been functioning well due to its very dirty state and accumulated dust was interfering with the proper speech of the pipes.

In January 1875 Messrs Walker undertook the complete rebuilding of the organ for £160 and the work took three months. Three years later the organ was in trouble due to damp.

As the increasing population of the Parish required that the space occupied by the organ and vestry should be given back to the sittings of the Church, a new organ chamber and vestry were built by Batchelar of Betchworth. Hot Air Apparatus was also installed at a total cost of £250.

The Parishes of Betchworth and Brockham became part of the Diocese of Rochester in 1877.

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Restoration

By 1883, the church needed massive restoration, particularly because of the defective condition of the exterior stone, and much of the decayed quoin stones were replaced with Bath stone. Repairs to the tower and buttresses cost £400 and the restoration of the rest of the stone £600.

When the work had been completed the triangular white marble memorial to Henry Goulburn was inserted into the front of the north porch by his younger brother, Col Edward Goulburn.

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Church Bells

In 1931, the octave of bells, tuned in the key of B, was provided following the bequest by Sidney Poland. The largest weighs 7 cwt and the total weight is 28 cwt. The bells are fixed stationary and are operated by means of a hand clavier or keyboard, the keys of which are connected to clappers inside the bells.

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Lych Gate

At the same time, £250 of the bequest was spent on the lych gate, as willed by Mr Poland. Designed by Frederick Hagyard, a local architect, it contains four tons of English oak and rests on a base of Cotswold stone. Among the village craftsmen who worked on it were the names Risbridger, Monnery, Jordan and Cornwell.

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Church Furnishings

Among old furnishings, "a beautiful and costly Communion Table, a velvet altar cloth worked by herself and Communion linen" were given by Miss Goulburn in 1860. On Christmas Day 1875, the five daughters of Sir Benjamin Brodie of Brockham Warren, presented kneeling cushions, worked by themselves, for use at the Communion Table rail. The stone and delicately carved oak pulpit, costing £34 2s, was dedicated at a special service on August 23rd 1889 and the same year a brass and oak Communion rail was fitted (£14 3s). Mr Kempe gave the stone cross above the porch in 1890. The brass lectern is dated 1893 in memory of Henry Bowman.

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Church Windows

Since 1860 most of the plain glass has gradually been replaced by colourful memorial windows. Opposite the north entrance St. George and St. Michael appear in a window to the memory of Leopold Seymour of Brockham Park (1904). Two other windows on either side of the nave show Hope, Fortitude, Faith and Charity and they are memorials to the parents of Mrs Seymour (1890). Leopold Seymour's parents are commemorated in the two windows at the end of the north transept (1883). Opposite is the memorial of another resident of Brockham Park, Frances Gordon (1905). In the west walls of the transepts are the windows of George Drayson (1873), Mary Lang (1879), Ann Thomas (1886) and Edith Poland (1924).

The most recent windows, over the altar (1938) and in the north wall of the nave (1939), were provided through the bequest of Sidney Poland.

The east window was specially designed for Christ Church showing events in the life of Our Lord and incorporating the figure of St. Michael, representing the Mother Church of Betchworth. St. Francis and St. Christopher were chosen for the nave window, as being most suitable for the children's corner which was at that end of the church. Constant Gardener of Beare Green, the talented artist who designed and made these lovely windows, died in the 1939-45 War.

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Diocese of Southwark

In 1905 Brockham became part of the newly formed Diocese of Southwark. After the war, when the village was included in the Urban District of Dorking, an attempt was made to have the parish transferred to Guildford Diocese to make it easier for Christ Church to join in the corporate church life of Dorking. However, Southwark was not willing to lose one of its few country parishes.

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Electric Light

The nineteen thirties saw great improvements inside the church. In 1931, not only had H. R. Kempe been churchwarden for forty-two years, Lay Reader for sixteen years and chairman of the Parish Council for thirty-five years, hut he was about to celebrate his golden wedding.' To mark the occasion the oak choir stalls were provided by public subscription and fit ted in his honour. At the same time the priest's stall was presented in memory of the Revd. A. E. Cooke, Vicar of Brockham 1921-1929. The installation of electric light in 1934 commemorated the twenty-eight strenuous years spent as G.P. by the much loved Dr Thorne.

The Church comprises a sanctuary and chancel with a nave to the west. To the north and south are transepts with a choir vestry leading from the south transept and priest's vestry on the north. There is a tower located between the chancel and nave.

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Benjamin Ferrey

Born in Hampshire, Ferrey was a pupil and biographer of Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. Pugin was Great Britain's foremost architect and designer of the nineteenth century, a man with extraordinary talent, verve and perspicacity. A man who believed in himself, and harboured a passion for Gothic and the Roman Catholic Church.

After a period on the Continent, under William Wilkins, Ferrey set up his own architectural practice in London in 1834. This practice grew to prodigious size, and Ferrey became an important establishment figure, for example being Hon. Secretary of Architects' Committee for the Houses of Parliament. He was Diocesian Architect for Bath and Wells, carrying out much restoration work on the Cathedral at Wells. He also designed and laid out parts of the town of Bournemouth. Ferrey's pupils included his son, Benjamin Ferrey Jr, and the late Victorian architect John Norton.

In London, his work includes several churches, including All Saints Blackheath, and the more centrally located St Stephen's, Rochester Row(1845-7) in Westminster.

He also designed Surrey churches at Shalford 1846, Kingswood 1848 and Esher 1853).

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Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-83), one of the most learned and stimulating twentieth-century writers on art and architecture, began his career in Germany. He later became professor of History of Art at Birkbeck College (University of London), Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge and a Gold Medallist of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

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