St Andrew’s Church, in Church Lane, Kingsbury, is inviting residents and
visitors to a Heritage Open Day on Saturday 16 September, as part of its
Rekindling St Andrew’s project. The beautiful Grade II* listed “new church”
building, with its magnificent interior decoration by top Victorian artists and
craftspeople, will be open to explore between 10am and 4pm. The Grade I listed
“old church” will also be open, but inspection of the inside will only be
available from 10am until 12 noon.
A watercolour sketch of St Andrew’s Church, in 1810 (when it was already
around 700 years old!) (Source: Brent Archives, Naimaster Collection)
There is a programme of events taking place during the Heritage Open
Day, as listed on the programme below. I don’t think booking is essential for
the talks / tours, which are all free, but if you do book it would guarantee
your place, if more people turn up for it than can be safely accommodated. More
details and bookings can be found here.
I am leading the first event, Old St Andrew’s Church, which is a short,
illustrated talk in the “new church” followed by a guided visit to Old St
Andrew’s, just a short walk away. If you would care to join me at 10.20am next
Saturday morning, to discover the history of this fascinating building (Brent’s
oldest), you will be very welcome! The other events will be equally interesting
and informative.
As
part of its Rekindling St Andrew’s project, the whole community is invited to
come and enjoy an Open Day at St Andrew’s Church, Kingsbury, next Saturday 8
July.
There
will be lots of activities for adults and children, music and a barbeque. There
will also be community tables, where you can talk to people who know about
things like the environment and local history, and discover more about these
and other subjects.
Best
of all is the chance to explore the inside of this beautiful Grade II* listed
heritage building and find out more about how it started life in the 1840s in Central
London, and was moved to Kingsbury in the 1930s. The work of some of the best
artists and craftsmen of Victorian times is on show as you walk around the
inside of the church, something that anyone can appreciate, whatever their
faith, or of none. You may even hear the
bells!
St
Andrew’s Church, Church Lane, Kingsbury. (Photo by Des
Blenkinsopp)
It’s
free to come along to this Open Day, between 11am and 4pm, so I hope to see you
there. I will be at the Wembley History Society table for much of the day
(probably in the hall behind the main church building) if you have any local
history questions you would like to ask.
Philip Grant.
Editor's note: And I will be on the Brent Friends of the Earth stall come and say hello.
Join us for a series of Community #Singalong Sessions with popular songs focused on themes of love, friendship, and community.
You don’t been to be a singer or have any musical training, - just turn up and have fun!
Four Community Singalong Sessions and a concert with singer-songwriter Annalie Wilson.
Annalie is a singer, songwriter,
musician and actress based in North West London. She has won awards for
her original music and acted as musical director on theatre productions.
Annalie is the founder of Resonate, which offers voice workshops
influenced by folk music from the country of Georgia. She has led
singing and songwriting workshops at the Refugee Council and co-led
retreats and meditation programmes involving community singing. www.resonate-voice.com
Join us for uplifting popular songs of love, friendship and community.
A typical English Church Bell. (Image from the
internet)
If you think you’ve heard church bells ringing recently, you might have
believed you were imagining it. But the chances are that you were hearing the
chimes from the bells at Saint Andrew’s, in Church Lane, Kingsbury. After being
silent for around twenty years, the eight bells in the tower above the church
are ringing out again, especially on Sundays.
St Andrew’s New Church, Kingsbury.
The peal of eight bells was cast by C.J. Lewis of Shepherds Lane,
Brixton, in 1880. They were a gift to the church from Mrs Imbert-Terry, in
memory of her daughter. The Imbert-Terrys were from a French landowning family,
who lived at Chester Terrace on the edge of Regent’s Park, and worshipped at St
Andrew’s. It was then a fashionable Victorian church in Wells Street, in
London’s West End. If you don’t know the story of how the church, with its
bells, came to be where it is today, you can read my article about Kingsbury’s Recycled Church on the Brent Archives local history website.
A record of some notable bell-ringing events on the St Andrew’s bells in
Victorian times. (From “St Andrew’s Church, Wells Street,
1874-1897”, reprinted in the 26 November “Order of Service”)
Musical bell ringing, or change ringing, has been going on (mainly in Britain or countries
with a British tradition) for centuries, and is now a hobby for pleasure as
well as part of church life. It needs a team of ringers, and a fellow Wembley
History Society member, now living in the USA, recently wrote:
‘I was an avid Church Bellringer when I lived in
the UK.I learned to ring while at
University, and rang at Kingsbury, St Andrew’s during the University vacations,
and also for the year I still lived in Kingsbury after I graduated.When I rang there in the 1980s the bells were
“rough-going”, and I heard that they’d subsequently become unringable.’
I believe the reason why the St Andrew’s bells stopped ringing was that
the structure of the church spire was found to have become too weak. The whole
“ring” of eight bells weighs 4.25 tonnes, with the largest “E flat” tenor bell
weighing more than a ton. They could not risk any bells becoming dislodged, and
falling on the bellringers far below!
So that the bells could ring again, they’ve been fitted with an
electronic chiming mechanism. This allows them to be rung by a hammer hitting the
bell, rather than the original manual method of pulling on the bell rope, and
the bell being swung round on a large wheel. The bells were rededicated by the
Bishop of Fulham, following a Mass for the Feast of St Andrew on Saturday 26
November.
The Bishop rededicating the bells at St Andrew’s on 26 November 2022. (Photo by Irina Porter)
A peal of bells was rung straight after the rededication, and will ring
out every Sunday at around midday, after the main morning service at the
church, and on other special occasions. Every day, at 8.30am, 12noon and 6pm, a
single bell will ring the “Angelus”. This is a call to prayer, common in the
Catholic Christian faith, and also followed by some C. of E. “Anglo-Catholic”
churches like St Andrew’s. The Angelus is three chimes of the bell, rung three
times with a short break between each, to remind the faithful to say three prayers,
three times a day.
Martin has kindly recorded the peal of bells at St Andrew’s, and put it
into a video, so that you can enjoy them, even if you are not within earshot of
the church when they are ringing.
Towards the end of the video, you will also hear singing from the
Romanian Orthodox congregation at St Andrew’s Old Church. If you don’t already
know the long and fascinating history of that heritage building, hidden away in
the churchyard just behind “new” St Andrew’s, you can read it in this illustrated article on the Brent Archives local history website.
A team of church bellringers, ringing a “change”. (Image from the internet)
It is hoped that work can be carried out to strengthen the spire at St
Andrew’s, so that the bells can be rung manually again, as well as
mechanically. This would allow anyone, from whatever faith, or none, to come
and learn the art of bellringing, and enjoy this traditional musical hobby (and
way of keeping fit!).
The church has recently been awarded a grant from the National Lottery
Heritage Fund, and will be launching a project, “Rekindling St Andrew’s” aimed
at sharing the church’s history and facilities with the wider local community.
I’m sure that many people will enjoy the chance to take part in secular
activities within the beautiful Victorian interior of this Grade II* listed
building – and some, in time, to have the opportunity of making the bells ring,
in teamwork with new friends.
Look out for news of this project in 2023, and in the meantime, enjoy
the bells of St Andrew’s!
