pARIsH CHURCHES
c.1930

Basingstoke Parish Centres of Worship in the 1930s

In the notes on Rev J R S Sranack (Priest-in-Charge at All Saints' 1930-1933), reference was made to a comment by thee Parish Vicar to six places of worship within Basingstoke Parish: "...Rev A Lindsay in charge of Cowdery Down and Rev L Tonkin with Mount Tabor and May Street, St Michael’s, All Saints and St Andrews remained to be divided between the Vicar and the Rev J R S Stranack".

St Michael's and All Saints' are recognisable today, and many may be aware that a Mission Hall had existed in May Street, but where were the other church centres?

Cowdery's Down is an area in Lychpit to the west of Barton's Mill. In the late 1970s, excavations at the site revealed a 6th/7th Anglo-Saxon settlement of 18 well-preserved timber buildings. In the early 20th century, to the south of Cowdery's Down, across the Basingstoke to London railway line, on the site of the present-day Hampshire Clinic was the Basingstoke Union Workhouse and its Infirmary. Local author Barbara Large identified that the Registrar General required that babies born at the Workhouse should not have "the Union" recorded as the place of birth on their certificates as that would be a lifelong stigma. Consequently from 1904 the Infirmary off Basing Road became known as Cowdery's Down House. A report in the 28th December 1907 edition of the Hampshire Observer headed "Christmas at Basingstoke" described services at St Michael's and at All Saints', and it also included a section headed "AI the Workhouse". This recounted "...a very bright and happy day" there. The article has specific references to Cowdery's Down House, including performances by the Cowdery Down Band (boys) and the Cowdery's Down Minstrels. The parish curate may have been, or assisted, the Chaplain of the Workhouse. The Workhouse became the Basing Road Hospital in 1948, with the site being redeveloped as the Hampshire Clinic in 1984.

Extract from 1930 OS Map showing locations of Cowdery's Down and the Basingstoke Union Workhouse

Mount Tabor was in Darlington Road, South View. St Thomas’ Home for the Friendless and Fallen (also known as the Diocesan Penitentiary for Friendless and Fallen Women) was proposed by Admiral of the Fleet Sir Alfred Phillips Ryder and constructed in 1874, with a new chapel being added in 1884. The Home was run by the Anglican Sisters of Charity order. By 1930, following financial difficulties, the home had been renamed the Mount Tabor Certified Institution and was being run by The Sisters of Transfiguration who took care of people under the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. Between 1951 and 1985 it became St Thomas’ again,in the form of a school for the deaf. After a period of disuse, the site is now the Barchester St Thomas’ Nursing Home, caring specifically for those suffering with dementia.

The St Andrew's worship centre mentioned in Rev Boustead's 1930s' quote should not be confused with the present-day St Andrews Methodist Church in South Ham. The St Andrews referred to by the Parish Vicar was the mission hall on the Reading Road. This was the "Old Reading Road" that ran up to Norn Hill before the Eastrop Roundabout was built. That this church meeting place was known as St Andrews can be derived from reports in the October 5th 1907 editions of both the Hampshire Observer and the Hants & Berks Gazette. Both newspapers carry reports on the re-opening of the enlarged Reading Road Mission Room. The dedication service was conducted by the Bishop of Dorking who observed in his address that the building had a St Andrew's cross in it. According to an article by Robert Brown (originally published in the Basingstoke Gazette in 2003), the mission hall held its last service in December 1958, and it was demolished in 1968 to make way for the Town Development Scheme.