Snippet 12 Background

In 1593 the name ‘Childes Hill’ appears on a map of Middlesex (John Nordon’s). A Tudor hamlet behind the present ‘Castle’ public house was a flourishing centre for pottery and tiles, using local yellow and blue clay. By the mid-19th Century Childs Hill was famous for its laundresses, especially in The Mead. They made good use of the streams flowing from the Heath and the exposed fields for drying the clothes. Clothes washed in London were thought to be susceptible to water-borne diseases, such as cholera and typhoid, and Childs Hill, then still in the countryside was thought ideal.
It was really the opening of the Finchley Road (1826-1829), with a tollgate at the Castle, that started the growth of the community. In the early 1850s a Colonel Evans built houses in a field called The Mead (later renamed Granville Road). In 1868 the Midland Railway came to Cricklewood (originally the station was called Childs Hill Station). In 1884 the Pyramid Light Works, a candle factory, was established, the first factory in the Hendon area.
Housing in Child’s Hill in the 1903 was described as a 'disgrace to civilisation' and in 1914 Hendon Urban District Council built its first council estate, with 50 houses. In 1901 the land between Childs Hill and Golders Green to the north was still farmland, but with the motorised buses (1906), the tube at Golders Green (1907), the trams (1909) and finally the Hendon Way (1927) farmland succumbed to suburbia. For entertainment Childs Hill had The Regal in the Finchley Road (1929), which was first a skating rink then a cinema then a bowling alley. In the early 1960s many of the small Victorian houses in the Mead and around the Castle Inn were demolished and three high rise blocks of flats built.
Both All Saints Parish Church (the third church in the parish of Hendon) and our own church began their meetings in local laundries before the present buildings were erected in 1856 and 1870 respectively. Further extensions were added to All Saints 1878-84. In 1940 the church was so badly damaged by fire that it was substantially rebuilt in 1952.
Evidently both churches were strongly evangelical at first. (The second vicar of All Saints, Rev William H Perkins was a signatory to the Address to the Prelates against the eastward position and vestments.) Sadly, during the time of Rev W D Petter (1893-1933) there was a change to a more Catholic position and this has apparently been the situation over since. Why Mr Petter should have moved from an evangelical position to a more Roman one, we do not know. We ought to give thanks to God that though things have not always been as one would wish with us, a broadly evangelical basis has been maintained. If we think we are standing, let us take heed that we do not fall. How easy it is to begin well but drift.

Snippet 11 Prehistory

The district now known as Childs Hill formed part of the ancient Manor of Hendon with which St Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury (d 988), endowed the Abbey of St Peter at Westminster in 959. In 1150 Abbot Gervase de Blois (illegitimate son of King Stephen) gave the land away. By 1295 the land was in royal hands again until Edward I gave it to Westminster Abbey as soul alms for his dead queen, Eleanor. In 1316 the Abbey exchanged the land for the Manor of Hodford and later in the same century Sir Richard le Scrope, 1st Baron Scrope of Bolton, some time Lord Chancellor, held them before exchanging them with Richard II for lands in Yorkshire. Hodford and Cowhouse were again ceded to Westminster Abbey in soul alms for Richard and his first wife Anne of Bohemia, in 1399. At the dissolution of the monasteries in 1550 the property came to the shortly-lived Bishopric of Westminster and from there into the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners via the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.
Two other dates worth mentioning are 1301 when Richard de Gravesend (Bishop of London) granted Walter de Wenlock (Abbot of Westminster) licence to celebrate ‘Divine service’ in the chapel which the monks of Westminster had built on their Manor of Hodford, provided that the consent of the Rector of Hendon be first obtained.
Then in 1321 The Black Book of Hendon included the name of Richard Child. It is from the Child family that Childs Hill derives its name.
Thus from quite early times Childs Hill was subject to the attentions of professing Christians. Sadly the state of the Mediaeval church was such that one wonders if any peasants in the area would have heard the gospel from the monks. We do not know, but God knows and one day in Heaven may be we will find that even in ancient times God had a people in this same area.

More Background

Childs Hill. A district on both sides of the Hendon-Hampstead border, Childs Hill took its name from Richard le Child, who in 1312 held a customary house and 30 acres, probably on the Hendon side. A similar estate was held at the same time by Richard Blakett, who gave his name to Blacketts well, which in 1632 was one of the boundary markers in the area and in 1801-2 was disputed in ownership.

By the mid 18th century the Hampstead part of Childs Hill was divided in two by the road later called Platt's Lane, which ran from West End and Fortune Green to the heath, Hampstead town, and Hendon. It was entirely occupied by two estates, both of which may have originated as land of the Templars. A farmhouse on the edge of the heath in the north part of the larger estate had apparently become detached from the farmland before 1811, when it was enlarged by Thomas Platt as a 'pleasing and unostentatious' brick house set in well wooded grounds.

The arrival of the Finchley road lessened the area's isolation. A house called Temple Park was built on the smaller Temples estate probably in the 1830s by Henry Weech Burgess, a prosperous Lancastrian. About the same time farm buildings were erected on Platt's estate fronting Platt's Lane. In 1843, on the western portion of Childs Hill estate, T. Howard built Kidderpore Hall, a stuccoed Greek revival house with a slightly projecting colonnade, side pediments, and a semicircular bay, for John Teil, an East India merchant with tanneries in the district of Calcutta from which the house took its name. The grounds became a private park and two lodges were added, one on the Finchley road in 1849, the other on Platt's Lane in the late 1860s. On a field of Platt's estate which jutted westward south of Teil's estate, four houses fronting Finchley Road were built in the 1840s in the district called New West End.

By 1870 the farm buildings at Platt's Lane had been replaced by a house. Two cottages were built in Platt's Lane by P. Bell of West End in 1875 and 13 houses, mostly by George Pritchard, between 1884 and 1886.
From: 'Hampstead: Childs Hill', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 9: Hampstead, Paddington (1989), pp. 73-5. URL: here

The Eight Ministers

Top (Left to right): W Rickard, J S Poulton, E K Alexander, L Wright

Bottom (Left to Right): J L Pretlove, A J Sandys, M Sharman, G B Brady

Mark Sharman

Mark Sharman, the seventh pastor. Minister 1976-1981. Mark was a local man who had connections with the church prior to commencing studies at Trinity College, Bristol. He later returned as pastor for a five year stint. He subsequently moved to the Newcastle-Upon-Tyne area where he is currently pastor of an FIEC church.

Tony Sandys

Anthony Sandys, the sixth pastor. Minister 1971-1975.

Tony studied at London Bible College and Childs Hill was his first charge. After various moves Tony and Joy ended up in Wales, in Cwmtwrch, where Tony was part of the eldership team in a local church. He went to be with the Lord early in 2007.

John Pretlove

John Pretlove, the fifth pastor. Minister 1963-1970.

A graduate of Spurgeon's College, Dr Pretlove, as he has since become, went on to work in Sheffield and then in the United States where he still resides.

Chapel Fifties

This shot is from some time in the later fifties and early sixties after the post-war remodelling at the front but before the removal of the railings.

The Chapel 1927

This is how the Chapel looked in 1927. The railings were subsequently removed and war damage necessitated the remodelling of the rose window into its present form to save expense.

Maps Alexander

Snippet 10 E K Alexander

Like his predecessors the church’s third pastor put in a long innings from 1928 until 1953. Like the present pastor, Rev Ernest Kennard Alexander was originally from the Newport area of Monmouthshire/Gwent in South Wales. Evidently his 'Nuwpaught' accent stayed with him all his life. Mr Alexander had worked with his father as a dock contractor, but in 1911 he felt called to the mission field and began to study at Harley College. At the outbreak of war the college closed and Mr Alexander went to Scotland to do welfare work. He opened a YMCA at Methil in Fife and worked on Inchkeith, an island from which the army guarded the Forth Bridge.

In 1915 he sailed for the Belgian Congo to help in the work of the RBMU (Regions Beyond Missionary Union). In 1919 he was married to a Miss F Clare also from Newport and a trained nurse. Sadly the conditions were not favourable to the family’s health and following the death of their baby and the sickness of their young son they were forced to return in 1925. After working for two-years in Highams Park Baptist Church, North East London, the Alexanders came to Childs Hill. Here they remained. The Congo was not forgotten, however, and their interest in overseas needs was communicated to the church and an enthusiasm for missionary work was kindled that has continued down the years.

Snippet 9 Rejection

Sometimes we can have too rosy a picture of what bygone days were like. In 1925 a film depicting the life of the missionary and explorer David Livingstone was put on general release. At a meeting of the of the church in Childs Hill, “It being deemed desirable that it should be seen by as many people as possible,” it was proposed that enquiries to the managers of both local cinemas asking for the film to be shown. At a church meeting the following month Mr Poulton read a letter from the manageress of the Queen’s Hall Cinema stating that they “could not undertake to exhibit, owing to the poor response to such films by the public”.
Even at a time when church attendance was very good (some 22 members were added to the congregation here on one evening just before this reference) there was a marked lack of interest in the gospel, so that the story of David Livingstone could not begin to compete with the likes of Rudolph Valentino. And so it generally has been down the ages. Men naturally hate God and turn from what is good.

Hal Erickson in the 'All Movie Guide' writes 'Those familiar with 20th Century-Fox's historical biopic Stanley and Livingstone might find the British silent Livingstone interesting. In the Fox film, the emphasis is on H M Stanley, the intrepid newspaperman who trekked into Darkest Africa in the mid-19th Century to prove that renowned Scottish explorer David Livingstone was still alive. This 1925 film concentrates on the life and work of Livingstone, played by Douglas Pierce as a boy, and M A Wetherell as an adult. Produced on a massive scale and released at 10 reels, Livingstone was truly a "special" so far as the relatively uninspired British silent film industry was concerned. The film was reissued in 1933 with a new title and musical soundtrack.

Snippet 8 Indenture

In the original indenture that outlines the lease and trustees of our present building certain interesting points are made concerning the nature of the congregation worshipping here. Amongst the legal jargon we find words such as these - The promises are to be employed ...

“For the use and benefit of a congregation of Protestant Dissenters attending (and to attend from time to time during the said term) the worship of God at the said chapel, maintaining the sole authority of the Holy Scriptures in every matter of faith and practice and that interpretation of the Holy Scriptures which is usually reputed Evangelical in contradistinction from the teaching of Unitarianism and the Church of Rome”.
Ministers of the church and those who ‘officiate’ must maintain: “The aforesaid interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and administer the rite of baptism by immersion only to those who profess their own faith in the Lord Jesus”.
Here we have something to thank God for. The same teachings that were preached and believed then are preached and believed here now. Sadly, in many Baptist churches that has not been the case. Despite an excellent beginning and. foundation the truths of historic Christianity have ceased to be preached and men and women have perished from a famine of the Word of God.
Let’s thank the Lord for our godly heritage and pray for grace to continue to maintain the evangelical faith in our own day.

C H Spurgeon

Having mentioned C H Spurgeon (1834-1892) once or twice, it would be good to note here that a fine website in his honour can be found here. The wikipedia page is worth checking. Spurgeon preached in Childs Hill on just one occasion - the afternoon of June 25, 1879.

The Pastors College

At the official site for the present Spurgeon's College here we read of the history of the college.

It remains a mark of a remarkable man that the College that bears his name was founded by Charles Haddon Spurgeon when he was just 22 years of age. His vision was to train others to share in the task of bringing the ‘Good News’ to a needy world. His maxim ‘from the heart of London into all the world’ resulted in his students going to every continent to preach the gospel.
The original name for the college was ‘The Pastor's College’ and Spurgeon took an active part in its life right up to his death in 1892. Every Friday afternoon he would lecture his students and subsequently these lectures were published. He was President of the College and was called upon to give an annual report. In one such report he wrote, ‘I would far sooner do the work than talk about it.’ For the first 15 years of the College's existence it was financed largely from Spurgeon's own resources and was indeed his own.
Later the apostrophe was moved when others took a greater share in its government and financing, and it became ‘The Pastors' College’. For many years the College was housed within the Metropolitan Tabernacle at the Elephant and Castle in London.
There was no residential accommodation and when the present College building was made available in 1923 it allowed students to live on site. At this point the name was changed again, now it would simply be known as ‘Spurgeon's College’.
Many stories could be told of former students, of Sylvester Whitehouse who was martyred in China in 1900; of W Y Fullerton who wrote the hymn that remains a favourite today, ‘I cannot tell why he whom angels worship’.
One story dates from 1860, just four years after the College was founded. A former student, Mark Noble, went out to the prairie lands of Nebraska, USA, farmed a small holding and rode around the country contacting settlers until he gathered a church which remains to this day. By 1956, one hundred years after it was founded, a total of 465 students had gone overseas.

Snippet 7 Poulton Call

The year 1882 must have been a momentous one in the life of young J Sylvester Poulton - not only did he marry that year but, more importantly, he finally decided definitely to begin training for the pastoral ministry. In February he led an evangelistic meeting here in Childs Hill. By August he had given up his career - and was ready to commence studying at C H Spurgeon’s famous ‘Pastors College’. By this time Spurgeon was at the height of his popularity and was the president of the college. Mr Poulton is quoted as saying that Spurgeon’s personality ‘Has left a lasting impression for good upon my life’.
Following his college course Mr Poulton’s first pastorate was in Winslow, Buckinghamshire. He was there for five years. He was then called to Cote, near Aston, in Oxfordshire. There he had charge of some six chapels - aided by as many as 27 local preachers. The work involved a great deal of travel (on horse back) but Mr Poulton loved the work. ‘I had the privilege of preaching regularly seven times a week to the same congregations’ he writes. ‘So happy and useful did my ministry at Coate seem that I did not think any church would have drawn me away but Childs Hill.’
Mr Poulton had preached in Childs Hill several times since his first visit in 1832. When Mr Rickard retired in 1894 it is not surprising that, with their old pastor’s prompting, the congregation asked Mr Poulton to be their pastor. Mr Rickard preached his farewell sermon on September 23rd. No time was lost in calling his successor and by December 9th of that same year Mr Poulton had commenced his 35 years of ministry in this area.

Evangelists Association

This is a report from Spurgeon's magazine the Sword and Trowel, the year before Mr Poulton came to Childs Hill.

On Friday evening, Sept. 23, the annual meeting of THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE EVANGELISTS’ASSOCIATION Was held in the Lecture-had, under the presidency of Pastor C H Spurgeon. There was a large and enthusiastic muster of the workers and friends of the Association, and the proceedings throughout were of the most encouraging description. We beg our readers to observe the vast amount of work done by this Society. Mr Elvin presented the report, from which we learn that, during the year, the following services have been held: On Sundays, at the stations belonging to the Association, 603; at other mission stations, 728; in the open-air, 131; in connection with special services, 63; children’s services and supplies, 376; on week-nights, in various chapels and halls, 1,508; in the open-air, 76; or a total of 3,485 meetings at which the gospel has been preached in some part of London. As the evangleists usually adopt the Scriptural plan of going two by two, the number of addresses given is still larger, amounting to no less than 4,948. To accomplish this work 124 brethren and sisters have been more or less occupied as opportunities presented themselves. The cost of carrying on this effort has been exactly £200, a very small sum when we think how much has been accomplished by this agency towards the actual evangelization of this vast city. The addresses actually cost under 10d. each. We have been glad to meet rather more than half the expenses by sums left to our discretion, the churches visited have contributed £53 1s 6d, donations from various friends, collections, tea meetings, etc, have realized about £43, leaving a balance of £2 10s 0d in hand with which to commence the work of another year. As fresh openings are constantly occurring, it is necessary that the funds should increase in like proportion, and the Society will also be glad of more voluntary preachers of the right sort. The honorary secretary is Mr G E Elvin, 30, Surrey-square, Walworth, SE.

Snippet 6 Mr Poulton

The second pastor at Childs Hill, following Mr Rickard’s retirement in 1894, was a man by the name of J Sylvester Poulton. Mr Poulton was born in Dalston, London, in 1861. His father was the principal of a private schoo1 - but he died when his son was only 10. No doubt that caused the boy to give some serious thought to life, but it was eventually the splendid singing of a large Baptist Mission that attracted him to the gospel. He began attending regularly when he was 15 and dated his conversion to a particular service two years later when he was 17.
It seems that from that moment he throw himself into the work of preaching the gospel with great enthusiasm. He preached in various lodging houses, work houses and mission halls, as well as engaging in open-air work.
At the ago of 19 he became a member of Vernon Baptist Chapel, Kings Cross. There he was very much influenced by the preaching of the minister, Rev C B Sawday. At the time one of London’s leading Baptist Churches met in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Elephant and Castle. The Tabernacle had been built in 1860 to house the vast congregations that flocked to hear the Rev C H Spurgeon. Several helpful agencies were commenced by Spurgeon, including and Evangelists Association, which Mr Poulton joined. It was in connection with this association that Mr Poulton first came to Childs Hill, in February 1882, to lead a series of special evangelistic meetings. Little did those who heard him that week realise that he would later be pastor of the church for more than 30 years.

The Outlook 1940 B

The Minister's letter, etc. Double click to read. Mr & Mrs Alexander had been missionaries in the Congo before coming to Childs Hill.

The Outlook 1940 A

Here we see the first and the last two panels of the church's Outlook Newsletter for july 1940. the other three panels to follow.

Cote

J Sylvester Poulton's second pastorate (1889-1894) was at the Baptist church in Cote, near Aston in Oxfordshire. That church goes back to Wycliffe's Poore Preachers who taught at Longworth across the River Thames in the late 15th Century. The first 'meeting house' is recorded in 1604 and the first minister of the Longworth/Cote meeting was appointed 1652. The first chapel at Cote was built 1704, the present one (no longer in regular use) in 1756. It is one of the oldest in the country and is under the ownership of The Historic Chapels Trust. See here.

Winslow

J Sylvester Poulton's first pastorate was at Winslow in Buckinghamshire

where he served 1885-1889. See here for the history of that work.

Snippet 5 Mr Rickard dies

William Rickard was pastor of the church from its beginnings in the 1860s until he preached his last sermon here in 1894. For more than a quarter of a century he was a stalwart of the faith, tireless and dedicated in all the work. Sadly, he died not very long after leaving Childs Hill. In the church minutes we read the following account.

“The last three or four years of his life were spent in much suffering. In March 1893 he had to go into hospital and underwent a serious operation. After six months leave of absence from the church he seemed to have recovered, and resumed his loved work; but his recovery was only for a short time, for increasing weakness at length necessitated his resigning the pastorate, and on Sunday September 23rd 1894 he preached his farewell sermon from Acts 20:26, 27: ‘Therefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare to you all the counsel of God’, and 2 Corinthians 13:11: Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind. Live in peace and the God of peace will be with you’. The chapel on that occasion was crowded almost to suffocation, many having to go away not being able to find even standing room in the porch or on the staircases.
“Less than a month from his retirement he was taken ill and lingered in much bodily suffering until called to higher service on January 21st 1896. The funeral took place on the Saturday following when nearly the whole of the village seemed to go into mourning. The coffin was borne in and out of the chapel and to the grave by members of the Fire Brigade. Hundreds attended the Marylebone Cemetery (notwithstanding the rain) to show their love and respect to one who had for so many years been their friend, and who had loved and served them to his utmost.
“Thus closed upon earth the life of one who was faithful to his God. May we who serve the same Lord and Master be equally as faithful. ‘Blessed are the dead which die I the Lord from henceforth. Yes, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them.’

Leslie Wright

The late Leslie Wright, the fourth pastor. Minister 1954-1961.

E K Alexander

E K Alexander, the third pastor. Minister 1928-1954.

Map 2

Early map of Childs Hill including the present chapel.

Double click to enlarge.

The buildings

People make a church not bricks and mortar. However, we are thankful to God, for the buildings he has provided. Some of the changes over the years are listed below.

1867 Mission Hall built in Granville Road.
1870 Hall replaced by the present chapel. It cost £2,500. (By 2000. the equivalent of £135,381)
1873 The Granville Hall built next door. It cost £600. (By 2000, the equivalent of £29,680)

1878 In March of this year a baptistery was installed
1885 First organ installed (replaced in 1908 by one that remains but that is defunct).
1890 An extra room (now unused) built between the chapel and hall to form a triangle of buildings.
1920 Electricity first installed.
1925 Another room built above that linking the chapel and hall (now residential).
1970s While the chapel was out of action the church met for several years in the Granville Hall.

1980 Wooden pews in the chapel replaced by chairs.

Snippet 4 William Rickard

On October 13th 1890 Rev William Rickard had been the minister in Childs Hill some 25 years. On this occasion the members presented him with the following interesting letter

“Dear Sir,
“As we review your quarter of a century of loving service in this part of the Master’s Vineyard, our hearts are full of gratitude to our heavenly Father for inspiring you with such untiring devotion - you have preached the word with great clearness, faithfulness and force, and your ministry has been constantly marked. with the fervent aim of arousing the conscience and driving the sinner from all false hopes to Christ, and. of leading the saints to a closer walk with God.
“And while this part of pastoral work has been nobly done, you have never neglected to visit us in our homes, being to us at all times a counsellor, comforter and friend.
“We are not forgetful also that this service has been rendered oftentimes by you in the midst of great weakness and suffering, and as we think of this our hearts are touched with deepest sympathy towards you in your present weakness and our prayer is that God may grant you renewed strength for future work.
“We recognise gratefully, too, the blessing you have proved to Childs Hill for you have not only been the principal instrument in founding the Baptist cause here 25 years ago, but you have undertaken the burden of establishing and finding the funds to carry on the day school where many hundreds of children have been educated. You have started and carried on very successfully for over 20 years the Provident Clubs for men and women which have encouraged thrift and afforded help to hundreds of families in times of sorrow and need.
“As a token of respect for you and appreciation of your work, we desire on behalf of the subscribers to present you with this address and a cheque for £210.
“We are, dear sir, yours faithfully,
“B A Lyon (Treasurer of fund), Richard Keevil, James Cox, E L R Miller, John Gilland, George Clark, Thomas Roberts (Deacons)”

J Sylvester Poulton

J(ames) Sylvester Poulton, second pastor. Minister 1894-1929. He was born in 1861 and died March 30, 1942.

Cricklewood Childhood 3

This is the final part of the Wardley article from the same source as the previous two. Nothing about the chapel as such.[Pic: The Avenue Cricklewod Lane]

When Mother was a girl she said she seldom had meat to eat. We had it once week - a glorious sirloin of beef, hot on Saturday, cold on Sunday, made into shepherd's pie on Monday. For Sunday breakfast we had Dad's home made sausages, the most delicious things you can imagine.
Grandfather was a preacher in the 7th London Circuit of the United Methodist Free Churches. We have a photo of him with 28 other worthies. His heart was in his preaching and not in business, and he liked nothing better than travelling on horseback to preach.
When he died in 1899 he left Father with debts. The folk in the large houses thought nothing of running up large bills, and not paying them. Costers in the cottages were cute, sending their children to buy one ha'porth of pickle in paper or a ha'porth of jam, and the scales in those days did not balance but must go down.
I remember when Princess Christiana (of Schleswig Holstein, sister of the Princess of Wales, who was later Queen Alexandra) came to open the newly built Institute (June 30, 1896). Dad made an archway of greenery from Granville House to our Corn Shop (what was the Men's Institute in Cricklewood Lane is now Childs Hill Library).
I remember going in the wagonette to take Grandma and Grandpa to the Wesleyan Church opposite Willoughby Road. We went along the Finchley Road, up Frognal and through to Church Row, where we had to pay at a tollgate. We walked over the West Heath three times on a Sunday to go to Heath Street Baptist Church and Sunday School. As we walked up from The Castle to the top of the Sandy Gallop the fields belonging to Mr Rickett of Sunnyfield were on our left. (Mr RIckett was a JP and a benefactor of the churhc in the early days). The Hermitage (pulled down in 1974) was on our right, followed by the horses' drinking trough (very much needed, specially on the nights before Bank Holidays when the fair people with their caravans and swings and roundabouts moved slowly up the hill) and Telegraph Hill on which was Miss Schroeder's cottage. My eldest sister had an allotment on the top of that hill, where the artist Sir Frank Salisbury later built Sarum Chase.
Grandpa died in 1899, aged 80, and Grandma in 1904, aged 92. Our family consisted then of Gordon 3, Winifred 5, Bernard 9, (darling twins had died in between), Alfred 12. I was 15, Alice 17, Grace 20. Winifred remembers walking with Gordon down Cricklewood Lane to a private school in Elm Grove called Sparkbrook College. A sweet shop opposite The Tavern sold "wiggy waggy toffee" at 8 oz a penny. You could get a good-sized bag of the black wafery stuff for a farthing. Further down, on the left, was the Home of Rest for Horses.
In 1908 the trams came down to Cricklewood, and Granville House was pulled down to widen the Lane into a road. Trams with open wooden-lath seats and open tops ran down the Lane. Later they went all the way to Barnet. Horse buses went along Finchley Road from The Castle, all the way to Oxford Street for 4d. In 1974 the shops opposite Granville House were pulled down. Our house and garden at Ridge Road is now part of the site of two rows of maisonettes with a road in between. Our house and long garden next to the Hermitage, where we lived after Ridge Road, is now the site of a large block of greyish Council buildings. But I still see things as they were.

Cricklewood Childhood 2

More from the Wardleys (see here)

Down Cricklewood Lane was farmland. Mr Dicker's farm stretched away to West Hampstead and there was another farm opposite Cricklewood Midland Station, which had originally been called Child's Hill Station. Halfway to the station on the right was The Tavern public house, (now the Cricklewood tavern I think) and beside it a little low cottage. This is the only building standing today exactly as it was in 1860. Our Mother said it was a Dame School to which she went in 1861 when she was 4. A pathway opposite, called The Avenue, led to Mr Dicker's farmhouse.

Our Mother was born in a cottage behind The Castle Inn. Her mother had a very large family and took in washing. Mother remembered when she was about 10 walking all the way to Oxford Street with her brother, carrying laundry. When it was paid for they could buy a bun or something to eat. Mother also remembered going to a little fountain in the Sandy Gallop (see footnote) to buy drinking water.
When she was 11 she had a job as a servant in a dairy in Albany Street. She helped the women to put on their wooden yokes and attach the full pails of milk. After a time she asked for 1s 6d a week instead of 1s 3d. When it was refused she left, and obtained a job as a "tweeny" in a large house. There she rose to be cook. Then she became a cook in Grandfather's house and Dad fell in love with her. Although their mother had been a cook too, the aunts did not think their brother should marry a cook! So Mother ran away, Father followed her and they were married.

Buckinghamshire Connections
Mrs. Poulton, wife of the Baptist Minister, had come from Great Missenden, Bucks, and this led to a close connection between our family and the farms and little Chapels there. My earliest recollection, when aged 5, was being taken by Father in the pony van which was used to take orders to the big houses. We carried a magic lantern and cylinders of gas for Father to entertain at one of the little Chapels in Great Missenden. I remember staying in a beautiful farmer's house and seeing my hostess wearing a lace cap.
Mother worked tremendously hard, not only looking after us but cooking for all the assistants in the shops. There was no Shop Closing Act then. When the Red Lion closed at 10 pm people thought of the food they needed and we were busy until we closed at 11 pm. I remember Dad waiting up for the van to return from Smithfield Market or from the Surrey Docks where it had gone for sugar, etc. If the roads wore icy it was very late. Even if it were midnight Dad would wait to rub down the horses and see them comfortable for the night. He loved his horses and pony. I watched him doctor them, give them medicine, rub them with. Ellimans Embrocation or poultice them with linseed or mustard. He used to treat us in the same way, with no mercy!
Sugar and flour came in hundredweight sacks and had to be weighed out. I used to watch my aunt cut blue paper into squares. She would then take a square and twist it into a cup, fill it with 1 lb. of sugar and press in the top. I saw Father open a large wooden box of eggs in shavings. He would take each egg separately and test it at a light to see if it was fresh. There would be many broken ones, with which Mother used to make custard and sponge cake. There wasn't much profit in those days. We couldn't afford to eat the biscuits, jam and sweets Dad sold, unless it was the broken biscuits which came in a large wooden tub, almost as tall as I was. I well remember climbing up and reaching down into the tub for a special favourite.
Original editor's footnote: Sandy Gallop is Sandy Road today, - it runs down to the Leg of Mutton pond and the West Heath. The "fountain" was on the opposite side of Sandy Road from the Pond, about half way down the road from West Heath Road. It has vanished now, but when we looked for it in 1977 we found the ground marshy where it had been, and many water-loving plants still growing there.

Cricklewood Childhood 1

In a newsletter originally produced in 1979 and available here the Misses Wardley (Ethel speaking, Winifred writing then adding her won recollections) came up with this piece. Part 1:

I was born in 1888 at 2 Cricklewood Lane, opposite the Castle Inn, Childs Hill. When I was 4 years old Father and Mother and my two sisters Alice and Grace moved down the steep hill a little way. Grandfather, a cheesemonger, had come there in 1860 from Kensal Green to live in Granville House, an imposing building (next to the chapel) with two shops below and two storeys of living rooms above, as well as cellars and stables. He and Grandmother, who came from the North and had been a cook had a family of 4 girls and a boy (our Father).
Grandfather built five little shops opposite, with one-storey living rooms and stables and mews behind, in about 1877, intended as businesses for his 5 children. These were Nos. 1-5 Ridge Terrace. We went to live over No. 1, which was a Corn Shop, called Wardley's Granary. No. 2 was Ironmongery and No. 3 Drapery, with Miss Button managing it. Grandfather, Grandmother and three aunts lived at Granville House and the shop below was Wardley's Stores, selling grocery, meat, bread and cooked meat pies, etc which Grandmother made. At the side of Granville House was a lane called The Mead (now called Granville Road and more recnetly Mortimer Close) but then Granville Road ran through fields up to the Finchley Road.
In 1877 the Baptist Church had been opened in The Mead and nurseries and laundries were there. There must have been wells and ponds behind. The laundries served the large houses on the Heath and along Finchley Road as far as Oxford Street. I remember the excitement when tents were put up in the fields opposite the Baptist Chapel for a Sankey & Moody Mission in the 1890s, at which I signed the Pledge. Beside the church there was a soup kitchen and Grandfather gave bones, peas, etc, for soup.
Beside Granville House in Cricklewood Lane was the Red Lion Inn and a row of cottages with long gardens in front. Clark's candle factory was nearby.
Opposite the Red Lion was All Saints Church and the National School with Mr and Mrs Harvey as the Heads. For two or three years before I was born Mother and Father had lived with them at Garfield House, No. 5 The Ridge, with a long garden and a gate at the bottom opening onto Church Walk and a quick approach to the school.

Snippet 3 Early Days

In the 1860s Heath St Baptist Church, Hampstead, had a very lively “Home Mission” group. On 4th September, 1865 a Mr William Rickard came to spearhead this mission work. J Sylvester Poulton (the second pastor at Childs hill Baptist Church) records

“Mr Rickard had only engaged in evangelistic work on Hampstead Heath for a few weeks, when, coming over to Childs Hill one day he found a large contingent of labouring men working in connection with the construction of the new Midland Railway, in addition to the usual inhabitants. He saw at once that here was a unique opportunity for working for his Lord and Master, and so, with the cordial consent and the prayers of the Heath St Church, Mr Rickard began open-air meetings where the chapel now stands. And in October of the same year, he began house to house visitation.”

Apparently at this time Childs hill was notorious for drunkenness, cock-fighting and everything that was bad. It was still really a village and Granville Road (or ‘The Old Mead’ as it was then) was often so muddy that tradesmen would have to leave their carts in Cricklewood Lane (or Child Hill Lane as it was then) and walk down to the laundries and houses to deliver their goods.
On 8th April, 1866 twelve people met in a small upper room at the “Model Laundry” in Granville Road for a Sunday evening service. On 20th May the Sunday School started, with 16 children meeting in Mr Elphick’s Laundry, again in Granville Road. This proved very successful and within two years some 145 children attended.
Throughout these early days the main workers were members of Heath Street but slowly people from Childs Hill itself began to become more involved until the actual formation of the church in 1877.

Constable Painting

The famous artist John Constable lived in the Hampstead area near Childs Hill. This painting depicts Childs Hill as it may have been then with Harrow in the distance. The painting was sold at Sotheby's in 1989 and appears to be in private hands.

Architect's Drawing

This is how the chapel was originally envisioned. It was built with a rose window. When that was damaged in World War 2 it was reworked, giving it its present appearance.

Pastors List

Between founding pastor William Rickard (pastor, 1865-1894) and the present pastor, who came in 1983, some six different pastors have served the church. Their names and the years they served are as below.

(William Rickard 1865-1894)

J Sylvester Poulton
1894-1929

E K Alexander
1929-1954

Leslie Wright
1954-1961

John Pretlove
1963-1970

Anthony Sandys
1971-1975

Mark Sharman
1976-1981

(Gary Brady 1983-The present)

Snippet 2 Beginnings

The Rev William Rickard was the first pastor of Childs Hill Baptist Church. In the minute books we find some details about his life and work. In 1865 he came to Hampstead to work as an assistant with Heath Street Chapel. He had spent the previous three years as a pastor in Hunton Bridge (near Abbotts Langley, Hertfordshire).

At Heath Street he was particularly concerned with outreach.

The minutes state that

“whilst so engaged he visited this neighbourhood and was greatly impressed with
the neglected condition of the village (as Childs Hill then was). This ultimately led to his withdrawal from the work at Hampstead and to his devoting his whole time to Childs Hill, the work being supported by the late Mr James Harvey of Hampstead.”

Once started, the work evidently grew quite rapidly. A room was hired for Sunday services in October 1865. In 1866 Sunday School work began and soon there was a mission hall. In 1870 the present chapel building was erected, the church being constituted seven years later. Mr Rickard appears to have been a tireless worker, not only as a pastor and Sunday School teacher but also with overseas mission, temperance work and in the day school that was established early in the church’s history. He was also active in the community with provident clubs, and in the formation of the local fire brigade. The minutes give us a picture of a godly pastor any minister would do well to emulate, and who any church should be grateful to God to have amongst them:

“He was a man who felt very deeply his responsibility and for many years it was his custom to schedule himself for an hour every day, in his vestry, to plead with God specially on behalf of the neighbourhood. He was a powerful evangelistic preacher and hundreds were converted under his ministry. His one great object in life was to preach Christ and he lost no opportunity of doing so. In season and. out of season he was ever pleading with sinners to trust their Saviour.”

Mrs Rickard

Mrs Mary Susan Rickard, wife of the first pastor. She was born Mary Susan Mitchell in Madron, near Penzance, Cornwall, around 1837. They married in 1863. The Rickards had three children (William, born in 1864, Marion, born in 1866 and Emily, born in 1868). The family lived in Ridge Road.

William Rickard

 

William Thomas Rickard was both the founder and the first pastor of the church. Born in Pennycross, near Plymouth in Devon, around 1837, he had come, via Hertfordshire, first to Hampstead and then Childs Hill in 1865.

Maps 1

Maps of Childs Hill can be found here.

Background Material

The following info is found here on a Barnet local government site

The settlement at Childs Hill is certainly medieval, possibly the 10th century settlement Codenhleawe and later called "Cowhouse". Although a John Knot de Childes Hill is associated with the Peasants' Revolt (1381), the earliest known use of the place name Child's Hill is in 1593. The name is probably taken from a family called Child in the 14th century. The Castle Inn was first recorded in 1751, when Child's Hill was a centre for brick and tile making during the second half of the 18th century, supplying material for building Hampstead, and run by the Morris family.
Being more than 259 feet above sea level (at the Castle Inn), Child's Hill is visible for miles around. From 1808 to 1847 there was anoptical telegraph station, one in a line from the Admiralty to Great Yarmouth. Only the name, Telegraph Hill, remains.
An Act of Parliament in 1826 allowed for the construction of the Finchley Road (completed by 1829) with a tollgate at the Castle Inn. In the early 1850s a Colonel Evans built houses in a field called The Mead, where the Morris brick works had been. The road was later called Granville Road.* In 1856 a new church, All Saints', was built. In 1940 the church was so badly damaged by fire that it had to be substantially rebuilt in 1952.
By the 1870s a number of laundries Childs Hill cleaned clothes for people in the new suburbs of West London and Hampstead. Clothes washed in London were thought to be susceptible to waterborne disease, such as cholera and typhoid, and Childs Hill, then still in the countryside, was supplied by a series of small streams coming off Hampstead Heath. In 1884 the Pyramid Light Works, a candle factory, was the first factory in the Hendon area. Victorian Childs Hill was a "very low" place, with cock-fighting, drunkenness, vice, and housing in Child's Hill in the 1903 was described as a "disgrace to civilisation" and in 1914 Hendon Urban District Council built its first council estate, with 50 houses.
With the motorbuses (1906), the tube at Golders Green tube station (1907), the trams (1909), and finally The Hendon Way (1927) farmland succumbed to suburbia. For entertainment Childs Hill had The Regal in the Finchley Road (1929), which was first a skating rink then a cinema then a bowling alley. In the early 1960s many of the small Victorian houses in the Mead and around the Castle Inn were demolished.

* The chapel is here (now in Mortimer Close). It was built in 1870.

Summary

Our current church website includes the following info

Beginnings
Childs Hill was once a quiet Middlesex village full of laundries (Constable painted it when he was living in nearby Hampstead). Things began to change in the 1850s after the railway came to Cricklewood. As Childs Hill and the surrounding area began to grow it also became pretty "rough".
One day, in 1863, Devonian William Rickard wandered over to the village from Hampstead, where he was assisting the minister of the Baptist Church in Heath Street. Seeing the great need he was soon, under God, able to begin regular meetings in one of the local laundries.
The present building was erected in 1870. The Granville Hall next door was added shortly after to accommodate a day school.

Early Days
In 1877 the first members covenanted together to form a local Baptist church, most having been in membership at Heath Street until this time. The church was founded on a decidedly Evangelical and Protestant basis. The great C H Spurgeon preached here on at least one occasion - as did students from his Pastors College. Mr Rickard was a pillar of the community and a faithful pastor until 1893, when he retired from the pastorate with ill health
He was followed by J Sylvester Poulton, a graduate of the Pastors College and an admirer of Spurgeon. He was here for 35 years and during his time the congregation seems to have continued to grow. Although there do not seem to have been any obvious concessions to liberalism there seems to have been some drift from preaching the good old fashioned gospel of Mr Rickard's time.

Between the Wars
From 1929 until 1954 the minister was E K Alexander. A native of Monmouthshire (now Gwent) in South Wales, Mr Alexander and his family had been missionaries in the Congo (now Zaïre) for 10 years but had been forced to return home due to ill health
During his time there was a slow but steady decline in numbers - as was the case in most churches in England at the time. There was also an increasing pre-occupation with the social side of church life rather than the gospel itself.

Since the 1950s
Since 1954 there have been five pastors (including the present one): all young men, fresh from college, evangelical in their convictions and preaching. Four of these served between 4 and 7 years. The present minister came in 1983.
Over these nearly 50 years the church has increasingly moved to a separatist position (we left the Baptist Union in 1984) and, though not uniformly, to a Reformed Baptist position as held by Spurgeon and others before and after him.
Though still small in numbers, things are presently more encouraging than they have been for a long time and we look to the Lord for increased blessing in the years to come.

Recent Events
The present pastor is Gary Brady who came to the church in 1983 after studying nearby in Finchley at the London Theological Seminary. He originally came from Cwmbran in South Wales. Before studying for the ministry he obtained an English Literature degree from the University of Wales in Aberystwyth. He later trained as a teacher in Cardiff University. In 2006, he obtained a Westminster Theological Seminary ThM through the John Owen Centre, Finchley.
He was married in 1988 to Eleri, from Aberystwyth. They have five sons. One is married and a university student, two others are in university and two are in Hampstead School. Eleri and the boys are bilingual.
Gary is chairman of the Evangelical Library and serves as a trustee of the Grace Magazine Trust. He is also on the board of the London Theological Seminary. He has written two commentaries in the Welwyn Commentary Series on Proverbs and Song of Songs and a book on What the Bible says about being born again as well as two other books.
In July 2001, we were pleased to appoint our first assistant pastor, Robin Asgher. Robin is from Pakistan and studied at LTS. He has now moved on to a church planting work in Cranford, West London.
From August 2002-September 2003 our assistant pastor was Mark Raines. Mark was also previously at LTS and is now an assistant pastor in the USA.
From September 2006-July 2007 our assistant pastor was Ian Middlemist. Ian is yet another LTS man. Before that he spent two years with Birmingham City Mission. He is now a pastor in Haverford West in Wales.

After  along period when it has not been possible to employ an assistants we now not only mentor students from the LTS on a regular basis but again have a former LTS man as assistant, namely Andrew Lolley from Leeds.

Snippet 1 Covenant

On June 12th 1877 Childs Hill Baptist Church met officially for the first time. The minister’s name was William Rickard and this is a copy of the covenant into which those first members entered as a church:

“We who are here present, having been brought by the providence of God to
worship together in Child’s Hill chapel, and being agreed as to the propriety of
becoming more closely associated. in the fellowship of the Gospel do hereby join
ourselves together, with the pledge of our reciprocal esteem and confidence, and
in devout dependence upon the blessing of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Ghost.
“And thus by our voluntary act, constituted into a church of Jesus
Christ: we will, from this time forth, endeavour to bear one another’s burdens,
and to rejoice in one another’s welfare. We will seek to walk in the ordinances
and commandments of the Lord; we will welcome to our fellowship brethren,
whether dismissed from other churches, or giving satisfactory evidence of
conversion to God. We will administer discipline if, unhappily, it should be
needed, as far as possible in the Spirit, and according to the directions of the
New Testament and, finally, we will watch and pray on the common behalf, that,
as a church, we may be like a light shining in a dark place; and as individuals:
the faithful and persevering followers of our Lord Jesus Christ unto everlasting
life.”

This is a founding covenant for which any church should be justly thankful. It would repay Christians in the present day to study the terms of the covenant and seek to live up to its demands. Not, of course, because we place traditions above Scripture, but because this particular covenant so accurately reflects much of what God’s Word expects of true churches.