The Church Index: A Book of Metropolitan Churches and Church Enterprise, Kensington

Particular church chronicles are scarcely found among the thousands of volumes which annually issue from the press, although there are no chronicles that have in them more of what is really of public import. In regard to Metropolitan churches, nothing of the kind we here present to our readers has yet been attempted. Detached notices of a church here and there will sometimes be found in our periodicals or newspapers; but no effort has yet been made to supply a collective and relative view of all particular church history and operations in given districts in a permanent and useful form. Yet, these churches have now become so numerous and influential, and are yearly increasing to such a degree, unparalleled in any former age, that it would seem they demand distinct and special recognition and record, and surely are worthy to be preserved in their characteristics as among the ingredients which must enter into the general church history of our times. It may thus happen that we are supplying a real desideratum in Christian literature. The present issue may either be taken as an entire work in itself, or as the first of a series which will appear at intervals, as often and as regularly as circumstances may determine. It contains accounts, longer or shorter as each case admitted, historical, ecclesiastical, architectural, clerical, religious, and social of over fifty churches—established and non-conforming—in the populous parish of Kensington. This parish extends from the Brompton Road, the Boltons and Earl’s Court southward, where it joins the parishes of Chelsea and Fulham, to Upper Westbourne Park and Kensal, beyond Notting Hill, north, where it abuts upon Paddington, and from Hyde Park and Bayswater, east, to Shepherd’s Bush and Hammersmith, west. It covers an area of 2200 acres, and has fifty miles of main streets or carriage-ways within the bounds. The population, according to the late census, is 121,100 souls. It will thus be seen that we have been treating in these pages the spiritual provision made for a population greater than that of many a large town or city in the kingdom. We were first attracted to Kensington, a former “suburban village,” not only because of its importance as a representative Metropolitan parish, but as forming the centre of the Western suburbs, and on account of the rapidity with which church-building has gone on there of late years. We now present the first part of our task completed, and in the “Index” with the “Notes” will be found all that it is requisite to know about these churches. There is other church matter included at the end which may add to the interest of the whole. Also, a goodly number of engravings and photographs of principal church buildings, additions which will contribute greatly to the interest and value of the book in the Christian household or in professional hands. The author’s thanks are due, and are hereby warmly and respectfully presented, to those clergy and other gentlemen of all denominations who have freely opened to him original and reliable sources of information. He is thus enabled to present the work freer from all sorts of inaccuracies than would probably otherwise be the case. He has, also, gratefully to acknowledge valuable aid from Mr. J. P. Churcher, Architect, of Kensington, who has kindly given the advantage of his professional knowledge in regard to a considerable number of the churches herein described. The work is now commended to the considerate attention of the public; trusting that the effort may be accepted as some contribution in illustration of Metropolitan churches and church enterprise, treated upon a thoroughly Catholic basis