At the entrance to Brentford Dock is St Lawrence Church, with its Great West Tower of soft worn Kentish ragstone. It embodies the spirit of hundreds of years of Brentford’s past, but sadly now, its fabric is being left to rot.
While we are thinking about the future of Brentford’s St Lawrence Church building, it is worth remembering some of the church’s very colourful history. This year, it is 250 years since one of Brentford’s most distinguished residents, John Horne Tooke became the curate of New Brentford, at St Lawrence Church on the 23rd November 1760.
I’ve dug into Brentford’s history, to find out more about this gifted preacher, political reformer and philologist.
After finding out that John Horne Tooke was buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s Church, Ealing, we arranged a visit with their church administrator. We were kindly given a tour of the church and there is a description of its history on the St Mary’s Church website. The church now is a fine example of 19th century English Gothic Revival architecture by Samuel Sanders Teulon.
William Noy died in pain through kidney stones, on 9th August 1634 and was buried two days later, without a service, in the chancel of St Lawrence Church, Brentford. A brass plate with an inscription was placed over his tomb, but was soon defaced, he was reviled by the public.
Five hundred years ago, in 1510, at least one of the six bells of St Lawrence Church, Brentford was installed, but sadly they are not there anymore.
When we were exploring the history of St Lawrence Church, Brentford, we read about some of the monuments that were inside the church, two of which were by noted English sculptors, John Flaxman and Nicholas Stone. Unfortunately, they are not there anymore and there is no account of where and when they were moved.
We went searching for them.
Buried in St Lawrence Church, Brentford is Henry Giffard, a theatre proprietor in 18th century London, who gave David Garrick his successful début as Richard III in 1741, at the Goodman's Fields Theatre.
I was wondering what exciting new uses there could be for the St Lawrence Church building, that would help to reinforce and energise Brentford’s unique character. It would be interesting to see if we could think of some creative possibilities which have some distinctive quality.
I would love to see St Lawrence Church used as a live recital space for classical, jazz, folk, music and poetry and literature readings. A place where top quality recitals can be seen and also recorded for TV, Radio, digital recordings and Internet channels.
If you would like to add to, or comment on our articles, please use our Comment Form, so we can share them.
