Foundation Stone
The Shrubbery
St Matthew's 1877-1941.
St Barnabas' at the start of the twentieth century
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Parish Records
All our records, including Baptism and Marriage registers
for St Matthew's Church, Lavender Hill and for St Barnabas'
are deposited with the London Metropolitan Archives:
Marriages between 1896 and October 1975
Baptisms between 1877 and June 1974
For details of records held and how to access them,
contact
London Metropolitan Archives
Copies of our Marriage Registers up to October 1975
are also held at
Wandsworth Register Office
More recent Marriage and Baptism Registers are kept
at the Church.
Contact us about these.
History
The story of the Church is closely linked to that of the house next door. One of the grand dwellings on the edge of Clapham Common, The Shrubbery was built in the 1790s and enlarged in the 1840s. As London expanded it became part of the built-up area and, in 1885, was sold to the Vicar of Battersea and used as a school.
The parish was formed in 1895. There was already a building in Rush Hill Road (St Matthew's, opened in 1877 and not finally abandoned until 1941) but the Ecclesiastical Commissioners insisted that the new parish must have something more substantial.
St Barnabas' was built in the grounds of The Shrubbery and opened in 1898.
It is one of some twenty churches built by William Bassett-Smith (1830-1901) and is in the fourteenth-century Decorated Gothic style. The reredos of the Last Supper was carved in Caen stone by a local sculptor, Thomas Rudge, and is contemporary with the Church. Though the tower looks as if it should have a complete peal of bells there is, in reality, only one.
The Shrubbery served as parish halls until it was sold in 1986. The money raised by the sale paid for the Church to be completely refurbished in 1994 and for meeting rooms, kitchen and toilets to be built within it. The new work was designed by the Brown Matthews Partnership. The organ was restored in 1997 with a new console in the body of the church. New railings and boundary piers were built in 1998 with the help of a generous Wandsworth Borough conservation grant.
War Memorials
Click here for details and pictures of
First and Second World War Memorials
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