Early Church Groups

We know from the minute books that early on in Child's Hill besides the regular services there was

Sunday School
Mothers Meeting
Bible Classes
Tract Society
Temperance Society

Childs Hill 1866

In 1866 the Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science By National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (Great Britain) appeared under the names of George Woodyatt Hastings, Andrew Edgar, Edwin Pears and Charles Wager Ryalls. An interesting reference to Childs Hill appears on page 75.

... It is almost impossible under our present laws to initiate sanitary improvement in the villages and small towns of the country. The most gigantic nuisances are allowed to grow up without let or hindrance, and it is only when some terrible calamity visits a place, that any action is taken. The Metropolitan boundary is studded with villages that the Management Act does not reach, and which are a disgrace to our civilisation. Such a village exists at Childs Hill, in the midst of a farm belonging to the Lord President of the Privy Council. I mention this to show how defective our sanitary legislation is at the present moment, so that the representative of all sanitary authority in Her Majesty's Government is helpless to remove nuisances at his very door. ...

This fits with what Mr Poulton later wrote in a piece about the church's early days.

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.