VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 1
VCH Oxfordshire Texts in Progress Caversham Religious History
Caversham had its own church by the mid 12th century when the benefice was acquired by the Augustinian abbey of Notley (Bucks.), which served the cure probably through stipendiary priests. A medieval chapel at Caversham manor house became a Marian shrine, and another chapel was established on Caversham bridge; both were dismantled at the Reformation, and thereafter the benefice became a poorly endowed curacy, its large parish served by poorly paid incumbents or their substitutes. Even so Nonconformity found only limited support during the 17th and 18th centuries. From the mid 19th century religious provision was expanded considerably, both through the creation at Kidmore End of a new ecclesiastical parish with its own church, and the foundation in Caversham and Lower Caversham of several daughter churches and non-Anglican places of worship.
Church Origins and Parochial Organization
St Peter’s Parish Church
In 1162--4 Walter Giffard gave Caversham church to his foundation of Notley abbey,1 by which time it probably had baptismal and burial rights: the font appears to be 12th-century,2 and its burial ground (cimiterium) was mentioned in the 1190s, along with the later dedication to St Peter.3 A vicarage was ordained in the early 13th century,4 though the absence of recorded presentations suggests that in reality the cure was served by the abbey’s canons or by paid chaplains, a practice approved by papal grant in 1258.5 The abbey was suppressed in 1538, and in 1542 the Crown granted Caversham rectory and the advowson of the vicarage to Christ Church, Oxford.6 Only stipendiary curates were appointed, however, and in 1757/8 an augmentation by Queen Anne’s Bounty created a perpetual curacy.7 The living became a vicarage in 1868,8 and was converted to a rectory
1 Dugdale, Mon. VI (1), p. 278; D.M. Smith (ed.), English Episcopal Acta IV: Lincoln 1186--1206 (1986), 196. 2 Below (relig. bldgs). 3 Crouch, Acts and Letters of the Marshal Family, pp. 153--4. 4 Gibbons (ed.), Liber Antiquus, 9; Rot. Welles, I, 182. 5 Cal. Papal Regs. V, 508--9. 6 VCH Bucks. I, 378; L&P Hen. VIII, XVII, p. 491. 7 Hodgson, QAB, pp. clx, cccxxiii; cf. ibid. pp. 37--8. The 1826 edn (p. 406) gives 1758. 8 District Church Tithes Act Amendment, 31 & 32 Vic. c. 117. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 2
in 1916,9 by which time Kidmore End formed a separate ecclesiastical parish.10 From 1968 the rector acted as curate-in-charge at Mapledurham, presaging the creation of a new combined rectory and parish in 1981.11 By then, however, much of Caversham’s built-up area was served from 19th- and 20th-century district churches which, from 1989, formed the basis of new parishes, the reduced Caversham and Mapledurham parish being renamed Caversham St Peter with Mapledurham St Margaret as part of the same reorganization.12 The parish belonged to Henley rural deanery from the Middle Ages until 1915, when all but Kidmore End was transferred to Reading deanery.13
Advowson and Clergy Stipends Notley abbey retained the advowson throughout the Middle Ages, despite the absence of formal presentations. In 1535 the abbey’s lessee was obliged to find and pay the priest,14 an arrangement probably long established; the obligation continued in 1554 after Christ Church obtained the rectory,15 but thereafter Christ Church itself chose the curate, of whom a handful (including John Walker in 1578) were formally instituted.16 Curates from the 17th to the later 19th century were normally fellows (or ‘students’) of Christ Church.17 After the 1981 union with Mapledurham patronage was shared between Christ Church and Eton College, Mapledurham’s former patron.18 The medieval rectory was amongst the better-off in the deanery,19 although its appropriation by Notley abbey and later by Christ Church meant that those serving the church relied on modest stipends. The vicarage established in the early 13th century was valued at 7 marks (£4 13s. 4d.) a year,20 and in 1526 the curate received a stipend of £6 13s. 4d.21 By 1637 the tenant of the rectory estate was obliged to pay the curate £20 a year,22 increased to £33 6s. 8d. in 1649,23 and to £40 in 1666; that last sum was guaranteed by Christ Church in 1758,24 following the benefice’s first augmentation by Queen Anne’s
9 Berks RO, D/P162/3/2/1--6. 10 Below (district churches). 11 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c 1009/4; Berks RO, D/P162/3/10/1--70; Who Was Who (online edn), s.v. Grimwade, Rev. Canon John Girling. 12 Below (district churches), incl. further reorganizn in 2002--10. 13 Youngs, Admin. Units, I, 394. The civil parish was transferred to Reading borough in 1911: below, local govt. 14 Bodl. MS Ch. Bucks. a. 2, no. 41; Pearman, ‘Historical Notices of Caversham’, 43--4. 15 ChCh, Caversham A.1. 16 Pearman, ‘Historical Notices of Caversham’, 46; Oldfield, ‘Clerus’. 17 ‘The Clergy Database’, available online. 18 Berks RO, D/P162/3/10/70 (Christ Church took three turns out of four). 19 Feudal Aids, VI, 372; above, landownership (rectory estate). 20 Rot. Welles, I, 182. 21 Subsidy 1526, 249. 22 ChCh, Caversham A.2. 23 Ibid. A.4. 24 Ibid. A.9 and A.37. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 3
Bounty.25 By 1778 total income was c.£64 including £18--£20 in offerings and fees and £4 from the Bounty,26 and in the late 1790s the lay rector Dr John Loveday gave a ‘handsome annual present’.27 Even so the living remained poor, and despite further augmentations28 was worth only £126 a year in 1841.29 A tithe rent charge of £277 was purchased by the Bounty for the benefice in 1869, replacing the £40 stipend,30 and in 1871 the living was worth £376 before rates and repayment of Queen Anne’s Bounty for a loan towards construction of a new vicarage house.31 By 1888 that had fallen to £265 (less outgoings of £62) because of a fall in the tithe rent charge,32 and in 1918 the net value was still only £340, rising to £592 by 1950.33 A ‘church house’ given to the benefice in 1943 was used as a parish office and meeting rooms, and continued to generate income in 2018.34
Clergy House Though a house for the rectory estate existed by the 14th century35 nothing is known of early clergy accommodation, and in 1738 the incumbent lived in lodgings.36 A £200 grant from Queen Anne’s Bounty, matching a grant from Christ Church, enabled the purchase in 1760 of an old house on Buckside, which was renovated and extended in 1802.37 Occupying low ground near the river the house periodically flooded, however, and by the 1830s was increasingly dilapidated,38 prompting the building in 1844 of a new 5- bedroomed brick vicarage house (renamed The Rectory in 1916) south of the church, next to Caversham Court.39 The £1,200 cost (along with £300-worth of additions made before 1875) were met by the incumbent Joshua Bennett (£720), a loan from Queen Anne’s Bounty (£400), a contribution from Christ Church (£250), and dilapidations paid by the previous incumbent (£130).40 The house was further enlarged in 1884,41 and was refurbished and reorganised in 2017 to incorporate new parish rooms.42
25 Hodgson, QAB, pp. clx, cccxxiii. 26 ChCh, MS Estates 65, f. 34. 27 Ibid. f. 42. 28 Hodgson, QAB, p. cccxxiii; ChCh, MS Estates 65, ff. 262--263v. 29 ChCh, MS Estates 66, f. 1. See also: MS Oxf. Dioc. c 2200, no. 3. 30 ChCh, MS Estates 66, ff. 126--34; Berks RO, D/P162/3/1/1--7; above, landownership (rectory estate). 31 ChCh, MS Estates 66, f. 136; below, this section. 32 Ibid. f. 160. 33 Crockford’s Clerical Dir. (1918--19 and 1949--50 edns). 34 http://www.ctmparish.org.uk/church-house/. 35 Above, landownership (rectory estate). 36 Secker’s Visit. 35. 37 ChCh, MS Estates 65, ff. 65--73, 281, 286; OHC, QSB/25. 38 e.g. OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. b 39, f. 73v.; below (Reformn to 1843). 39 ChCh, MS Estates 66, ff. 28--37, 40--1, 120; NHLE, no. 1321971 (incl. mistaken claim that Caversham Court supplied clergy accommodation before the 1840s). 40 Bodl. MS Top. Oxon. d 42, f. 14. 41 ChCh, MS Estates 66, f. 161v.; OS Map 1:2500, Oxon. LVI.15 (1881 and 1899 edns). 42 Info. (2018) from Francis Construction Ltd website. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 4
The Rectory
District Churches and Parishes
Kidmore End The consolidated chapelry of Kidmore End was formed in 1853 from the northern part of Caversham parish and outlying parts of Shiplake and Sonning,43 the whole served from Kidmore’s recently completed church.44 The incumbent was a perpetual curate until a vicarage and ecclesiastical parish were constituted in 1868.45 The Shiplake Bottom area (between Widmore Pond and Kingwood Common) was transferred to Rotherfield Peppard in 1918,46 and in 1967 a church centre was built as a daughter church in Sonning Common. An area on the northern fringe of Emmer Green was transferred back to Caversham in 1970.47 In 2000 the benefice was renamed Kidmore End and Sonning Common,48 and in 2003 it was united with Rotherfield Peppard to create the new rectory of Rotherfield Peppard and Kidmore End and Sonning Common, patronage remaining (as earlier) with the bishop of Oxford. The parish remained part of Henley deanery.49 The living was at first very poorly endowed,50 worth just £44 in 186351 and £80 in 1866. A tithe rent charge was purchased from the lay rector Henry Simonds in 1869 and given by Miss Palmer of Holme Park in Sonning in 1877, while the Ecclesiastical Commissioners increased their annual grant to £127 13s. 4d. in 1883.52 By 1898 net income was £236, and the glebe covered 11 acres. A vicarage house built in 1858 was paid for
43 London Gaz. 3 Jan. 1854, pp. 2--3; OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c. 1876 (incl. map). 44 Built 1851--2: Gardner’s Dir. Oxon. (1852), 706; below (relig. bldgs). 45 OHC, PAR153/10/C/3. 46 London Gaz. 19 Nov. 1918, pp. 13600--1; OHC, PAR153/10/M/1. 47 Berks RO, D/P162/3/9/1--2; below, Eye and Dunsden, relig. hist. 48 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c. 1876. 49 Crockford’s Clerical Dir. (2004--5 edn), 120, 271; Oxf. Dioc. Year Book (2006 edn), 88; VCH Oxon. XVI, 330. 50 Para. based on Smith-Masters, The History of Kidmore End, 18--21. 51 PO Dir. Oxon. (1863). 52 London Gaz. 30 Nov. 1877; Smith-Masters, The History of Kidmore End, 18--19. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 5
mainly by the incumbent Francis Fleming and his predecessor, the 6-a. site being purchased and given by the local landowner H.J. Shepherd.53 The rendered building incorporates decorative brick and timber-work and a steeply pitched roof with dormers and tall chimneys, while a wing added in 1863 provided a second servant’s bedroom and scullery.54 The house was sold in the late 20th century, and replaced by a modern residence on Tokers Green Lane.55
Caversham and Emmer Green In the later 19th century additional district churches were established in the parish’s built-up southern part. A school-cum-chapel at Emmer Green was built in 1864,56 superseded by an iron church on a different site in 1897,57 and by a permanent structure (St Barnabas’s) in 1925.58 St John the Baptist’s church at Lower Caversham opened in 1888, and St Andrew’s in Caversham Heights in 1911.59 All three remained part of Caversham parish until 1989 when they became independent benefices in the bishop’s gift, each with their own parishes; a fourth parish incorporated the modern housing estate of Caversham Park, forming a local ecumenical project and a curacy of the ancient parish church of St Peter’s.60 In 2002 Caversham Park was removed from St Peter’s and united with St Barnabas’s, Emmer Green, the patronage being jointly exercised by the bishop and by Christ Church.61 St John’s at Lower Caversham was joined in 2010 with Caversham St Peter and Mapledurham St Margaret, creating the benefice of Caversham Thameside and Mapledurham.62
Religious Life
The Middle Ages
Despite the ordination of a vicarage63 the cure was apparently served for much of the Middle Ages by stipendiary chaplains. Most (like Richard Baker in 1526) were probably non- graduates,64 and may have often moved quickly elsewhere. Regular attendance by those living in the parish’s hillier northern parts may, as later, have been discouraged by the
53 ChCh, MS Estates 66, f. 96. 54 Smith-Masters, The History of Kidmore End, 18. 55 Local information. 56 Berks RO, D/P162/28/31. 57 For photo, Emmer Green Past and Present, 46. 58 Below (relig. buildings). 59 Ibid. 60 Eton College, COLL VP 09 43 (incl. map). 61 Reading Deanery Pastoral Plan 2001 (approved Feb. 2002). 62 Crockford’s Clerical Dir. (1977--9 and later edns). 63 Above (paroch. organizn). 64 Subsidy 1526, 249 (probably the ‘Ric. Parker’ still serving in 1530: Visit. Dioc. Linc. 67). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 6
church’s position at its southernmost extremity.65 Nonetheless the church’s highly visible position on a main road close to the bridge across the Thames, leading to Reading with its major abbey, is likely to have attracted visitors and offerings, and its fortunes may have been strengthened rather than diminished by the development of the bridge chapel and of the popular Marian shrine at Lower Caversham, especially as both eventually came into the hands of the church’s patron, Notley abbey.66 Improvements to the church fabric67 perhaps partly reflected investment by the Giffards and their successors or, in the case of the chancel, Notley abbey, despite late-medieval charges that the latter failed to maintain its appropriated churches.68 The addition of aisles, chapels, and a west tower probably also involved the wider parish community, however, and some laity were certainly involved with the Marian chapel, where the canons’ obligation to supply wax for lights (in return for a late 12th-century grant by William Marshal) was to be overseen by the manorial reeve and ‘two nearer men of the parish’ (duorum propriorum hominum de parochia).69 By the late Middle Ages the church had four bells and was furnished with candlesticks, a sliver-gilt chase, a copper-gilt cross, holy water pots, altar cloths, an altar hanging, and a rood screen with a light supported by bequests of sheep, while clerical vestments included copes of velvet, silk, and satin.70 In 1537 the husbandman Richard Page requested burial before ‘the high chancel door’ (located presumably under the rood screen), and gave a cow for the ‘Jesus Mass’,71 perhaps associated with a fraternity. Parochial processions, according to a tradition reported in the early 18th century, went from the bridge chapel to a well called St Anne’s well ‘between the field called the Mount and the lane called Priest Lane’.72 The story is given credence by the discovery in 1906 of an old chalk- and flint- lined well on Priest Hill,73 and perhaps by Thomas Stonor’s visit to Caversham c.1470 to drink ‘at water side’.74 By then Lollards were present nearby in Reading, Henley, and elsewhere,75 although no evidence of Lollard activity in Caversham itself is known.
65 Below (Reformn to 1843). 66 Below. 67 Below (relig. bldgs). 68 VCH Bucks. I, 377; VCH Oxon. VI, 321. 69 ChCh, Notley deeds, m. 3, no. 3 (printed in Crouch, Acts and Letters of the Marshal Family, pp. 154--6); below (chapel and shrine). 70 Chantry Certs. 42, 92--3. 71 TNA, PROB 11/28/43. 72 Markham, John Loveday, 14. 73 E. Margrett, ‘St Ann’s Well and Chapel, Caversham’, The Berks., Bucks & Oxon. Archaeological Jnl 12 (1906), 25--7. 74 C.L. Kingsford (ed.), Stonor Letters and Papers, I (Camden 3rd ser. 29, 1919), p. 108. 75 J. Martin, ‘The People of Reading and the Reformation 1520--1570: Leadership and Priorities in Borough and Parishes' (Reading Univ. PhD thesis, 1987), ch. 2; VCH Oxon. XVI, 165; Dils and Yates, An Historical Atlas of Berkshire, 58--9. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 7
The Chapel and Shrine of the Blessed Mary of Caversham The chapel of the Blessed Mary does not survive,76 but stood within the curia of Caversham manor house close to the river.77 Apparently a foundation of the Giffards, it was granted to Notley abbey with Caversham church in the mid 12th century, by which time it already bore its later dedication.78 Its date of foundation is unknown, although Notley tradition claimed that it existed in Henry I’s reign when it was given the head of the holy lance and other relics.79 William Marshal’s biographer claimed that the Marshal built a ‘glorious and beautiful chapel’,80 implying a substantial rebuilding to accompany his gifts to the abbey in 1189 x 1199,81 and by 1214 the chapel stood in its own walled enclosure along with buildings erected by the abbey.82 Early grants imply a cell accommodating several Notley canons,83 of whom the ministering canon was sometimes called the ‘warden’ of Caversham, and once (in 1246) the ‘prior’.84 By the 16th century he had ‘a proper lodging’ in the complex, along with a ‘fair garden and an orchard’.85 By the 13th century the chapel was a significant pilgrimage destination, known apparently as a site of healing.86 Henry III was a generous benefactor,87 and both chapel and canons continued to be supported by successive lords of the manor and by other local landholders,88 amongst them Robert of Mapledurham.89 Around the middle of the 13th century John Duredent gave 2s. a year for a light before an image of the holy cross,90 and support continued in the later Middle Ages, Isabel Beauchamp bequeathing gold and gems to ‘our Lady of Caversham’ in 1439.91 In the early 16th century there was low-level royal
76 Contrary to A.J. Holden, S. Gregory and D. Crouch (eds.), History of William Marshal (Anglo- Norman Texts Society, Occasional Publications Series, nos. 4--6, 2002--6), III, 193. 77 ChCh, Notley deeds, m. 4, nos. 2--4. For the manorial site, above, landownership (medieval manor ho). 78 Cartae Antiquae, Rolls 1--10 (PRS, n.s. 17), 80; ChCh, Notley deeds, m. 3, no. 1; Dugdale, Mon. VI (1), p. 278. 79 C. Haigh and D. Loades, ‘The Fortunes of the Shrine of St Mary of Caversham’, Oxoniensia, 46 (1981), 63; Crouch, Acts and Letters of the Marshal Family, p. 81. 80 Holden, Gregory and Crouch, History of William Marshal, II, 452--3. 81 Crouch, Acts and Letters of the Marshal Family, pp. 153--6 (c.19 a. in return for providing candles in the chapel). For other gifts expressly supporting the chapel, ibid. pp. 80--1, 346--8, 378--9, 399--401, 431--2; Haigh and Loades, ‘The Fortunes of the Shrine of St Mary’, 65--7. 82 ChCh, Notley deeds, m. 4, no. 1, printed in Crouch, Acts and Letters of the Marshal Family, pp. 80-- 1. 83 e.g. Bodl. MS Dugdale 39, f. 72v. 84 Cal. Close 1237--42, 375; Cal. Close 1242--7, 393; T. Wright (ed.), Three Chapters of Letters relating to the Suppression of the Monasteries (Camden 1st ser. 26, 1843), 222; Haigh and Loades, ‘The Fortunes of the Shrine of St Mary’, 70. 85 Wright (ed.), Three Chapters of Letters, 222--3; Pearman, ‘Historical Notices of Caversham’, 36. 86 Haigh and Loades, ‘The Fortunes of the Shrine of St Mary’, 71; above, landscape etc. (communics). 87 N. Vincent, ‘King Henry III and the Blessed Virgin Mary’, in R.N. Swanson (ed.), The Church and Mary (2004), 135, 143. 88 Haigh and Loades, ‘The Fortunes of the Shrine of St Mary’, 66--7. 89 ChCh, Notley deeds, m. 8, no. 5; for Rob., below, Mapledurham, social hist. 90 ChCh, Notley deeds, m. 8, no. 4. 91 N.H. Nicolas (ed.), Testamenta Vetusta (1826), I, 240. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 8
interest, and the shrine (mentioned disparagingly by a Reading Lollard in 1508) remained a significant local focus,92 although its annual offerings of £8 were insignificant compared with those of major centres.93 In 1538 it was defaced and suppressed by the royal agent Dr John London, who claimed that there were more than a dozen devotees on the day of his visit. Having pulled down the silver-plated image and removed the ‘lights, shrouds, crutches and images of wax hanging about the chapel’, London locked the doors and prepared for stripping of lead from the roof.94
The Chapel of St Anne on Caversham Bridge95 A small chapel dedicated to St Anne was built near the middle of Caversham bridge before 1231.96 Possibly it was a joint foundation, since it lay partly in the Marshal lordship of Caversham and partly in that of the abbot of Reading.97 The advowson, however, was held by the lords of Caversham,98 who made occasional presentations,99 and in 1374 Edward Despenser gave the chapel to Notley abbey for ‘the increment of the light of holy Mary in our chapel of Caversham’.100 The canons were to perform mass in the bridge chapel, and presumably appointed chaplains to do so. In 1314 the chapel was valued at 20s. a year, and in 1376 at c.10s.--13s. 4d. in offerings, plus 2s. rent from two cottages.101 It was apparently in good condition c.1540 when Leland described it as ‘a fair old chapel of stone’;102 the main part had been demolished by the 18th century, however, and probably considerably earlier.103
The Reformation to 1843
Suppression of the bridge chapel and Marian shrine was followed in 1552--3 by removal of church goods and (presumably) the rood screen, witnessed by the churchwardens and the curate Arthur Aylands or Aylmere.104 No resistance is recorded,105 and though traditional
92 Martin, ‘The People of Reading and the Reformation’, 34. 93 Haigh and Loades, ‘The Fortunes of the Shrine of St Mary’, 67, 71. 94 Wright (ed.), Three Chapters of Letters, 221--6. 95 For a separate chapel of the Holy Ghost at the bridge’s south end, Kemp, Reading Abbey Cartularies, II, 157; C.F. Slade, ‘Reading Records’, Berks. Archaeol. Jnl 61 (1963--4), 51; Haigh and Loades, ‘The Fortunes of the Shrine of St Mary’, 71. 96 Cal. Close 1227--31, 499. 97 Ibid. 98 Cal. Close 1313--18, 137; Cal. Inq. p.m. IV, 344. 99 e.g. in 1258: Rot. Gravesend, 213. 100 ChCh, Notley deeds, m. 4, no. 7; Cal. Inq. Misc. III, 391, claiming that the chapel stood within Caversham parish. 101 Cal. Close 1313--18, 137; Cal. Inq. Misc. III, 391. 102 Leland, Itin. ed. Toulmin Smith, I, 111. 103 Hearne’s Colln, IX, 298; M.R. Mitford, Recollections of a Literary Life (1857 edn), II, 3. It was still standing in 1551: TNA, LR 2/189, f. 60. 104 Chant. Cert. 92--3, 113--15. 105 For the chapel’s suppression, Haigh and Loades, ‘The Fortunes of the Shrine of St Mary’, 71. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 9
Catholic preambles continued in wills of the 1540s and early 1550s,106 possibly reflecting curates’ views, in 1559 the curate John Bruern conformed to the Elizabethan settlement.107 Sixteenth-century clergy served mainly short terms, and many (including Aylmere) were apparently non-graduates:108 the curate Robert Jackson was described in 1586 as ‘a very mean man’ who provided ‘little preaching’.109 In 1580 the commandments were written up in the chancel,110 presumably in response to the archdeacon’s visitation the previous year, although in 1584 the churchwardens were cited for allowing pigs in the churchyard and for failing to suppress a brothel.111 Small-scale Catholic recusancy (mostly at gentry level) surfaced in the early 17th century, continuing intermittently into the 18th. Two recusants (a gentleman and a yeoman) were reported in 1604--5, and though both had recently left the parish,112 nine inhabitants were reported in 1634, most of them meeting together and possessing a bible.113 One was a member of the Alexander or Milward family, lessees of the rectory estate,114 while other prominent Catholics included the Sheldons (non-resident manorial lessees)115 and William Knollys’ widow Elizabeth and her new husband Edward Vaux.116 Amongst other parishioners, conventional piety was probably the norm. Bequests to the church were mainly small and of a common type, and in 1637 a new bell was paid for by a special parish rate.117 In 1631 the lay rector William Milward was ordered to resume provision of a customary Easter drinking, which was removed from the church and transferred to Easter Monday.118 William Brice (curate from c.1628) signed the protestation oath in 1641 but then apparently left the parish,119 while his successor Matthew Day (brother of the vicar of Mapledurham) was deprived for his loyalty to the king.120 Another ‘papist’ (Mr Dolmer) harboured Royalist
106 TNA, PROB 11/28/43; OHC, MS Wills Oxon. 180, f. 119. 107 Pearce, ‘Clergy’, 143. 108 Ibid. 144; Pearce, ‘Cert. 1593’, 162. 109 Peel, Register, II, 130. 110 John Loveday, ‘Tour no. 1’, transcription by Sarah Markham, kindly supplied by John Markham, May 2017. 111 OHC, MS Oxf. Archd. Oxon. c 7, ff. 52v., 57v., 64, 69v. 112 H.E. Salter, ‘Recusants in Oxfordshire 1603--33’, OAS Rep. (1924), 20, 21. 113 OHC, MS Archd. Oxon. b 12, ff. 344--5. 114 Stapleton, Cath. Missions, 118--19. 115 VCH Oxon. XI, 64--5, 74. 116 Ibid. XVIII, 117; G. Anstruther, Vaux of Harrowden (1953), ch. 6. 117 OHC, MS Oxf. Archd. Oxon. c 13, f. 143v. A sixth bell was added in 1660: F. Sharpe, The Church. Bells of Berks. (1970), pp. 57--8. 118 Bodl. MS Top. Oxon. c 56, ff. 60--1. 119 F.R.L. Goadby, ‘Protestation Returns 1641--42: Caversham’, The Oxon. Family Historian, 3:7 (1985), 229--30. 120 Walker Revised, ed. Matthews, 277; Cal. Cttee for Money, II, 1159; ODNB. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 10
soldiers in 1643,121 and in the late 1640s several Reading and Sonning children were baptised in Caversham ‘by reason of the troublesome times’.122 In the 1680s the curate Peter Shelley held two Sunday services, and apparently increased communion from five times a year to six. In 1682 he nevertheless admitted that poor attendance was common especially in winter, his list of 42 non-attenders at Easter communion apparently representing mainly male heads of household. Of those, 30 (including several parish officers) were conformists; eight others, however, were Protestant Dissenters, including two Quakers and an unnamed French servant of the earl of Kildare. Four Catholics or suspected Catholics comprised three members of the locally prominent Blount family (including the only woman mentioned), and the parish constable. Though few people attended conventicles, Shelley alleged that many were displeased at his zeal in seeking out both Dissenters and recusants, especially as his ‘predecessor never concerned himself in it’.123 His successor James Flexney was reported in 1685 for failing to read the litanies,124 although he did raise subscriptions towards work in in the chancel.125 The early 18th century saw little immediate change. In 1738 Francis Gastrell (curate 1736--40) performed double Sunday duty with a sermon, led weekday prayers, and catechised. Attendance was still undermined, however, by the ‘great number of scattered houses at a great distance from the church’, those parishioners living furthest away reportedly attending churches elsewhere.126 Some of the ‘poorer sort’ absented themselves for ‘want of proper clothes’, and despite the presence of a substantial population living close to the church only ten parishioners attended monthly communion, rising to forty at the great festivals.127 The pews of the better-off dominated the nave, and some gave occasional gifts, Elizabeth Cadogan donating silver plate and an alms box in 1754.128 The long-serving Peter Vatas (curate 1747--1800) was also chaplain to Lord Cadogan,129 and initially increased the number of communicants to 30 or 40, with 80--100 at great festivals.130 Church services were enlivened by the playing of stringed instruments and singers trained by a master, and in 1787 the tower was repaired and ornamented at a cost of £140.131 The improvements were not sustained, however, and while in 1774 only ‘some few of low rank’ disregarded religion, by the end of Vatas’s curacy there were said to be ‘many’ absenters. Some still
121 Jnl of Sir Samuel Luke, I, 63. 122 OHC, par. reg. transcripts. 123 Bp Fell and Nonconf. 7--10 and nn., cf. Compton Census, ed. Whiteman, 425, reporting two papists and two nonconformists in 1676. For local Quakerism, ODNB, s.v. Thomas Curtis. 124 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. d. 708, f. 154. 125 Below (relig. bldgs.). 126 Secker’s Visit. 34--5. 127 Ibid. 35; OHC, OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. d 555, f. 102v. (1759). 128 Wing, ‘Old Caversham’; Berks RO, D/P162/1/3. 129 For Vatas, Markham, John Loveday, 276; Reading Mercury, 13 Jan. 1800. 130 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. d 555, f. 103. 131 Berks RO, D/P162/5/2. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 11
pleaded distance and others the ‘shame of appearing…in rags’, although the greater part were claimed to absent themselves ‘from a total disregard to their spiritual concerns’.132 Intermittent recusancy continued until mid century. The Kildares (as lords) outwardly conformed but apparently harboured Catholic sympathies, half a dozen recusants in 1706 being mostly family ‘servants’.133 Mr Forbett or Forbert, the earl’s French former steward, remained in the 1720s,134 and in 1759 there was a single Catholic ‘of low rank’, although none were reported later.135 Small-scale Protestant Dissent also continued. In 1738 there were three Nonconformist farmers (two Presbyterians and an Anabaptist), and twenty years later two Presbyterian families and one Quaker family.136 Nonconformity may have increased from c.1780 after Vatas became rector of Little Warley (Essex), where he spent some of his time, with ‘many’ Methodists and ‘some’ Anabaptists reported in 1802.137 Church life in the earlier 19th century was poorly served by Walter Hutchinson (curate 1802--8), who inherited the title Lord Aston,138 and his pluralist successor Benjamin Pope (1809--43). Both were often absent, the latter living mainly in Somerset from the early 1820s,139 and substitute curates served only short terms140 for fairly modest stipends (£70 in 1823).141 The parish clerk, who acted as sexton and church cleaner, was underpaid,142 and though a Sunday school was established c.1802,143 and the number of communicants increased from 20 in 1811 to 50 in 1820, that still represented only a small proportion of a large and growing population.144 The church fabric saw no substantial investment, and by the 1830s the poor condition of the clergy house was discouraging potential curates and causing a ‘continual change of clergymen, to the great discomfort of church-going parishioners’.145 Clergy themselves complained of the cold and damp accommodation,146 and by c.1840 the bishop judged the parish to be in ‘a very neglected state’.147 After much
132 OHC, MSS Oxf. Dioc. d 564, f. 89v.; d 566, f. 57v. 133 W.O. Hassall, ‘Papists in Early 18th-Century Oxfordshire’, Oxoniensia 13 (1948), 81; Stapleton, Cath. Missions, 316 n. 134 Bodl. 4° Rawl. 526; pobably the same ‘Mr Forbett’ who was listed in 1706. 135 OHC, MSS Oxf. Dioc. d 555, f. 101v.; c 432, f. 26. 136 Secker’s Visit. 35; OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. d 555, ff. 101v.--102. 137 OHC, MSS Oxf. Dioc. b 37, ff. 37v.--38; d 566, f. 57. 138 Ibid. c 429, ff. 110, 112; d 570, f. 66. 139 D. McClatchey, Oxfordshire Clergy 1777--1869 (1960), 65; OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. d 580, f. 55v. 140 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. d 566, f. 58; Oldfield, ‘Clerus’. 141 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. d 580, f. 55v.; by 1838 it was £75 (ibid. b 41, f. 54v.). 142 Ibid. d 568, f. 72; d 574, f. 60. 143 Ibid. d 566, f. 57v. 144 Ibid. d 572, f. 63v.; d 578, f. 49v.; above, landscape etc. (popn). Pope claimed (in 1813--14) that Dissenters caused trouble by claiming pews and objecting to the installation of stoves: ibid. c 661, ff. 16, 150--1. 145 ChCh, MS Estates 65, ff. 274, 282--3; above (clergy house). 146 OHC, MSS Oxf. Dioc. b 39, f. 73v.; b 41, f. 54. 147 Wilb. Dioc. Bks, 19. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 12
local pressure, in 1843 Christ Church finally deprived Pope for his failure to provide a proper house.148 Against this background Nonconformity became more firmly established, fed by the influence of Reading and other nearby centres. A meeting house licensed in 1801 apparently closed soon after,149 but in 1808 there were c.80 Methodists,150 and in 1811 (when they had a Sunday school) there were a ‘great many’ Methodists and Anabaptists, whose numbers were said to ‘daily increase’. In the absence of resident teachers, adherents attended meetings in Reading and Rotherfield Peppard.151 The Independent minister William Kingsbury (d. 1818) opened a small meeting house in 1815,152 supplying much evangelical preaching,153 and by 1823 there were ‘many dissenters of various denominations’ and several licensed meeting houses.154 A chapel at Caversham Rise (on Peppard Road) was established by James Sherman as an offshoot of St Mary’s, Castle Street (in Reading) in 1826--7, endowed by the absentee landowner Mrs Ann Burchett. At first it was associated with the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion, but by 1836 it was firmly Congregationalist.155 By the 1840s those in Caversham’s more distant hamlets -- almost 400 people in all -- either attended ‘schismatical places of worship’, went to nearer parish churches, or simply spent Sundays ‘in riot and dissipation’.156
Since 1843
From the mid 19th century the huge growth in Caversham’s population transformed its religious as well as social life.157 Wealthier incomers played an important role in funding church building and other activities; social change and the rapid turnover of population presented new challenges, however, as did the continued growth of Nonconformity.158 Under the long-serving Joshua Bennett (curate 1843--82) church attendance rose,159 reportedly reaching 400--500 (or around a fifth of the population) by the later 1860s;160 lack of space,
148 ChCh, MS Estates 66, ff. 5, 11--23v.; Reading Mercury, 18 Jan. 1840; 31 Dec. 1842. 149 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c 644, f. 59. 150 Ibid. d 570, f. 65v. 151 Ibid. d 572, f. 63v. 152 Ibid. c 644, f. 162. 153 ODNB, s.v. Kingsbury. 154 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. d 580, f. 55; c 644, f. 149. For subsequent licences to 1828: c 645, ff. 39, 52, 117. 155 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c 645, f. 70; The Congregational Magazine (1827), p. 705; Summers, Congreg. Ch. 11, 187--9; Char. Com. Website, no. 233776. 156 ChCh, MS Estates 66, f. 46. A short-lived meeting house was licensed at Cane End in 1836: OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c 646, f. 30. 157 Above, landscape etc. (popn). 158 Above, social hist.; below (non-Anglican worship). 159 Ch. and Chapel, 1851, no. 82 (morning congregn of 260); Wilb. Visit. 29 (estimating 300--400). 160 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c 332, f. 111v.; c 335, f. 75v. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 13
especially for the poor, became problematic, however, even after the building was extended in 1879.161 Bennett was initially judged ‘energetic’, if lacking in funds, although in 1858 the bishop bemoaned a lack of ‘real spiritual work’.162 By 1862 there was an assistant curate,163 who from 1864 served at the newly built school-cum-chapel at Emmer Green,164 where successful evening classes were held.165 Leading parishioners were said to appreciate Bennett’s mainstream approach and the avoidance of ‘non-essential forms and ceremonies which had produced so many contentious and unseemly feelings in some other parishes’.166 The new church built at Kidmore End in 1852 was conceived as part of a spiritual mission to improve religious and social provision in a neglected area, in which the incumbent and his wife were to play a central role.167 In the 1870s the church was ‘fairly’ (and sometimes fully) filled especially in fine weather, and better-off inhabitants contributed to the building’s beautification.168 Kidmore’s clergy appear to have been diligent, amongst them Francis Fleming (1857--63), who started a parish magazine and introduced evening classes for labouring men.169 Arthur Sturges (vicar 1871--89) introduced daily morning service and school catechism and continued the well-attended night schools,170 while a farmer held a bible class for farm lads,171 and a successful choir acquired c.35 members.172 Even so church attendance amongst working men remained poor, which was attributed to beer shops, and in 1866 there were c.100 Dissenters.173 The period after c.1880 saw large-scale growth in Anglican provision. A second assistant curate was appointed for Caversham in 1884,174 and district churches were established at Lower Caversham (1888), Emmer Green (1897, replacing the school chapel), and Caversham Heights (1911).175 The new churches, built in response to a doubling of the population, were funded largely by subscription, and at first attracted good congregations. Churchgoers bequeathed property and money, some of it to augment the clergy’s
161 Ibid. c 332, f. 112; c 338, ff. 88v.--89; c 350, f. 79. 162 Wilb. Dioc. Bks, 19--20, 142. 163 Oldfield, ‘Clerus’. 164 Berks RO, D/P162/28/31. 165 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c 338, f. 89 (1872). 166 Reading Mercury, 7 Oct. 1882. 167 Caversham Parish Mag. 10 Feb. 1849, incl. list subscribers; OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc c. 1876 (for 1852 petition for consecration); K. Tiller, ‘Priests and People: Changing Relationships in South Oxfordshire, 1780--1920’, in People, Places and Context: Essays in Local History in Honour of Joan Dils (2016), 27, 33--5. 168 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c 341, f. 258v.; below (relig. bldgs.). 169 Dils, Rural Life in South Oxfordshire, 23. For their careers, Smith-Masters, The History of Kidmore End, 16. 170 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c 338, ff. 236--7; c 341, ff. 258v.--259; c 344, ff. 239v.--240. 171 Ibid. c 347, f. 244. 172 Dils, Rural Life in South Oxfordshire, 24--5. 173 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c 332, f. 256; c 344, f. 239v. 174 Caversham Parish Mag. July 1884: copy in Berks RO. 175 Above (district churches); below (relig. bldgs.). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 14
stipends,176 while new church halls provided venues for religious education and for social activities (including for youngsters).177 An emergent high-church tone prompted occasional criticism, however, as in 1913 when the priest-in-charge of St Andrew’s Caversham Heights was accused of having Catholic tendencies.178 Rogationtide processions were revived both there and at St John’s, Lower Caversham, led by a robed priest, acolytes bearing a censer, and churchwardens and sidesmen,179 while a war memorial installed in St John’s in 1921 took the form of a suspended oak rood group.180 The 20th century saw the usual fall in congregations, and though by 1925 the electoral roll stood at 1,370 (with as many as 1,150 communicants attending during Easter week in 1939), regular attendance was far lower.181 Funding of church activities remained difficult, the St Peter’s bellringers’ 1932 summer outing being cancelled to save money.182 Second World War disruption included alteration of services to maintain the black-out,183 and peacetime brought new problems: in 1947 St Peter’s was locked because of thefts,184 and long-term reduction in attendance led to removal of pews in 1958 and 1974.185 A continuing high-church tone in the 1940s--50s was reflected in an emphasis on the sacrament, accompanied by elaboration of altars and installation of screens, aumbry safes, and lights.186 Harold Nash (rector 1943--62 and rural dean from 1955) encouraged worshippers to genuflect on entering or leaving St Peter’s while the sacrament was reserved,187 and at St Andrew’s Sidney Doran (priest-in-charge 1943--51) installed a stone carving of the Madonna and Child as part of alterations to the chancel end.188 Such changes were not universally popular, and Doran in particular attracted criticism.189 The later 20th century saw new initiatives particularly by John Grimwade (rector 1962--81),190 who in 1963 increased participation in services by allowing laymen to read the epistle.191 A church newspaper representing all local Christian groups (the ‘Caversham
176 e.g. Berks RO, D/P162/3/13/1--23; D/P162/8A/29/1--14; D/P162/8A/31/1--4. 177 Smith-Masters, The History of Kidmore End, 22 (Kidmore End hall, 1902); Emmer Green Past and Present, 70; above, social hist. 178 Berks RO, D/P162/7/1/1--3. 179 Reading Mercury, 19 May 1917 (at St Andrew’s, then St John’s). 180 Berks RO, D/P162E/6/1/1; OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c. 1008. 181 Caversham Parish Mag. 1925, 1939. 182 Berks RO, D/P162/28/74/1--2. 183 Caversham Parish Mag. 1939--44; Berks RO, D/P162/28/65/1--6. 184 Berks RO, D/P162/8A/9. 185 Ibid. D/P162/6/34/11; poster display in church (June 2017). 186 Berks RO, D/P162/8A/83/1--28; D/P162/6/34/9--10; D/P162D/6/1/1--2; D/P162E/6/1/4; OHC, PAR153/11A/A/4--5; below (relig. bldgs). 187 Caversham Parish Mag. 1943--4: copy in Berks RO. For tributes to Nash, Caversham Bridge, Dec. 1969. 188 Berks RO, D/P162C/6/2/9--11. 189 Ibid. D/P162C/8A/11/1--46. 190 Who Was Who (online edn). 191 Poster display in church (June 2017). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 15
Bridge’) was introduced a year later,192 and c.1970 an ecumenical church was established for the new suburb of Caversham Park (worshipping in the primary school), in which Anglican, Methodist, and Baptist collaboration was formalised in 1988.193 Other collaborative ventures included the establishment in 1965 by Caversham PCC of ‘Caversham Good Neighbours’, a group providing transport to hospitals and surgeries for the elderly and (latterly) a befriending service,194 followed in 1990 by ‘Churches Together in Caversham’. Challenges continued, however. Vandalism and break-ins in 1979--80 prompted security measures,195 and in the late 20th century several church halls were closed. In the early 21st century more than half the population identified themselves as Christian,196 although regular congregations represented only a very small proportion of the total. Individual churches experienced differing fortunes, the more successful including St Peter’s, which maintained a ‘traditional’ liturgical tone and a robed choir, and attracted over 100 people to its three Sunday services.197 The churches of St Barnabas (Emmer Green), St Andrew (Caversham Heights), and Kidmore End were also fairly well supported and funded, attracting some substantial bequests and gifts.198 By contrast the future of St John’s seemed uncertain, given its small congregation, financial problems, and extensive community outreach commitments.199 St Peter’s churchyard was closed to burials in 1885, to be succeeded by a new municipal cemetery and mortuary chapel off Hemdean Road.200 An additional c.55-a. municipal cemetery north of Henley Road was opened in 1927, with an Italianate chapel- cum-crematorium of 1932 designed by G.B. Wills.201
Non-Anglican Worship from 1843 By 1851 the Congregationalist chapel founded in 1827 had its own minister and a Sunday evening congregation of 60, and supplied weekday services and a Sunday school.202 A second Congregationalist chapel (called Rokeby Hall) opened at Tokers Green in 1898, serving a group which had previously met in neighbouring Mapledurham.203 A Free Baptist chapel in Caversham, opened as a preaching station in
192 Copies in Berks RO, with index 1964--2001 (ibid. D/EX1758/39). 193 Malpas, Caversham Park, 108; Berks RO, D/P162/8A/67; Caversham Bridge, June 1971; Apr. 1973; http://rva.org.uk/organisation/cavershamparklep/. 194 www.cavershamgoodneighbours.org.uk/history.php. 195 Caversham Bridge, Sept. 1979, Sept. 1980; Berks RO, D/P162/8A/88/1--5. 196 www.churchofengland.org/more/policy-and-thinking/research-and-statistics. 197 www.ctmparish.org.uk/wp.../01/2016%20Parish%20Profile%20v1.1%20FINAL.pdf. 198 Local information; below (relig. bldgs). 199 www.ctmparish.org.uk/wp.../01/2016%20Parish%20Profile%20v1.1%20FINAL.pdf. 200 Below, local govt. (par. govt). 201 Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1939), under Dunsden and Eye; Malpas, Caversham Park, 94; Tyack and Pevsner, Berks (2010), 481. 202 Ch. and Chapel, 1851, no. 83. 203 Summers, Congreg. Ch., 176--7. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 16
1866, was superseded by a larger church in 1877, both of them generously supported by Ebenezer West to counteract what he called Caversham’s ‘spiritual destitution’.204 Wesleyan Methodist churches opened in Lower Caversham in 1881, and at Caversham Heights (with at first only a small congregation) in 1909; the Lower Caversham building was initially an iron church, succeeded by a school-chapel in 1891, and by a permanent church in 1899.205 A small roadside Primitive Methodist chapel was established at Gallowstree Common in 1878, following open-air preaching by members of the Reading circuit;206 another opened at Emmer Green in 1885 but was closed and converted to a hall in 1893, although occasional services continued there until it was demolished c.1919.207 The Catholic parish of Our Lady and St Anne was formed in 1896, with a small convent of French nursing sisters. A school- cum-chapel opened in 1899, followed by a more substantial church from 1902 and a hall in Arts-and-Crafts style in 1914. A leading early benefactor was Florence Crawshay of Caversham Park.208 During the 20th century the denominations experienced varying fortunes. Roman Catholicism retained a fairly strong presence,209 reflected in the establishment of a second Catholic primary school which was for some time used as a Sunday Mass centre.210 The Church of Our Lady of Caversham, established on Richmond Road (Caversham Heights) in 1954, closed in 2002 and was demolished the following year,211 although the earlier church of Our Lady and St Anne continued, acquiring a shrine chapel in the 1950s.212 Mass was first celebrated in English in 1965.213 The Methodists flourished at Caversham Heights, where membership rose from c.100 to 279 in the second half of the century,214 although the
204 Caversham Free Church (pamphlet 1876): copy in Reading Central Library; D.T. Williams, ‘Caversham Baptist Church (1875--77)’ (Open Univ. thesis [c.1980]) (on the desire to include Independents); E. Sawyer and A. Shield, Caversham Baptist Free Church 1872--1972 (n.d.), p. 8; Berks RO, D/EX1791/2; below (relig. bldgs). The chapel was later adapted as a British school: above, social hist. 205 M. Ayres and K.J. Sanders, As Stupid as Oxen: A History of the Reading and Silchester Methodist Circuit (1988), 21; VCH fieldwork (2018). 206 Thiam, Hard Times but Happy, 212; Caversham Bridge, Mar. 1968. 207 Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1887 and later edns); Ayres and Sanders, As Stupid as Oxen, 12; Emmer Green Past and Present, 70. 208 Stapleton, Cath. Missions, 316; B.W. Kelly, Historical Notes on English Catholic Missions (1907), 120; M.S. Taylor, The Crawshays of Cyfarthfa Castle (1967), 176--7; Tyack and Pevsner, Berks. (2010), 680; below (relig. bldgs). 209 Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1939 edn) (St Anne’s visitation convent); Malpas, Caversham Park, 108. 210 Above, social hist. (educ.); info. from Tony Hadland. 211 H.M. Gillett, The Restored Shrine of Our Lady of Caversham (1958), 11; Reading Evening Post, 14 Mar. 2002; A. Taylor and J. Pine, ‘Former Church of Our Lady, Richmond Road, Caversham, Reading, Berkshire’ (unpubl. TVAS rep. Oct. 2003). The Catholic convent closed c.2005: J. and L. Mullaney, Catholic Reading: A Pilgrimage Trail (2013), p. 30. 212 Below (relig. bldgs). 213 Caversham Bridge, Jan. 1965. 214 Ayres and Sanders, As Stupid as Oxen, 21; ‘Caversham Heights Methodist Church, Woodcote Road, Dedication of the New Office and Wesley Lounge 10th June 1990’ (typescript in Reading Central Library). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 17
Gallowstree Methodist chapel closed in 1987 after a long decline.215 Caversham North Baptist Free Church, set up c.1940 at 191 Kidmore Road (near Farthingworth Green), closed c.2000,216 leaving the still-thriving Baptist church of 1877 on Prospect Street.217 The Congregationalist chapel on Peppard Road hosted large open-air meetings in the 1930s, but by 1954 its membership had fallen to just 17. Numbers increased to c.200 in 1977,218 and it later became the venue for Grace Church, part of the Catalyst network of Newfrontiers churches and a member of the Evangelical Alliance.219 The Congregationalist chapel at Tokers Green closed in the 1990s. New initiatives included a Salvation Army meeting hall on Prospect Street (c.1914-- 67),220 and a Pentecostal church (The New Testament Church of God) established in the Glendale cinema in 1978, where many cinema features were retained and a baptism pool installed.221 Caversham Evangelical Church was founded in 1990 and continued in 2018, meeting at Emmer Green youth centre.222 A Muslim association supplied quran classes for children by the early 21st century,223 although only c.2 per cent of the population was Muslim.224
Religious Buildings
St Peter’s Church (Caversham Parish Church)
Caversham church, located on high ground overlooking the Thames, is a predominantly flint- built medieval structure substantially altered and enlarged in the 19th century.225 In its present form it incorporates a chancel with north and south chapels, a north vestry, an aisled nave, and a west tower, of which the tower, south aisle, and vestry are wholly Victorian. The earliest features are 12th-century, notably the re-set round-headed south doorway with bold zig-zags and saltire crosses (perhaps of c.1120--30), the re-set west window of the north aisle, and (more doubtfully) the marble font set on a modern base.226 A three-light window of
215 Ayres and Sanders, As Stupid as Oxen. In 2018 it survived as a house. 216 Reading Dirs. (various edns); Caversham Bridge, Apr. 1965; local info. 217 Below (relig. bldgs). 218 ‘Caversham Hill Chapel 1827--1977’ (typescript in Reading Central Library). 219 Emmer Green Past and Present, 49; www.gracechurchcaversham.org.uk/. 220 Reading Dirs. (various edns); Caversham Bridge, Aug. 2018. 221 I. Meyrick, Oxfordshire Cinemas (2007), 49; church website (accessed June 2017). 222 www.cec.uk.net/Who%20we%20are.html. 223 http://cavershammuslimassociation.org. 224 www.churchofengland.org/more/policy-and-thinking/research-and-statistics. 225 Described in Parker, Eccles. Topog. no. 157; Long, Guide to the Parish Church of St Peter; NHLE, no. 1303560; Tyack and Pevsner, Berks. (2010), 479; K. Claiden Yardley and N. Merry, ‘Caversham St Peter: Statement of Significance’, unpublished 2018 report. 226 The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain & Ireland: http://www.crsbi.ac.uk/site/1037/. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 18
c.1300 survives reset in the south chapel, having been relocated from the chancel’s east end in 1924,227 and medieval decorated floor tiles reset at the nave’s west end mentioned in 1938 were probably also from the chancel.228 The north aisle and north-east chapel are late medieval.
St Peter’s church in 1845
The church’s earliest plan may have comprised just nave and chancel (or apse).229 A north aisle was probably first added in the later 12th century: the present north-west angle and window appear to be surviving fragments, and a plain, round-arched nave arcade survived until the late 19th century. In the early 14th century the chancel was rebuilt or extended, judging by surviving fragments of stonework including the re-set chancel window, and descriptions of the medieval chancel arch destroyed in 1878. A tower may have been added or rebuilt around the same time, since a depiction of 1587 shows a three-stage tower with a steeple.230 In the second half of the 15th century the north aisle was rebuilt on a larger scale, incorporating a north chapel whose four-light super-mullioned east window contrasts with the other, flat-headed new windows. The chapel’s original collar-braced roof and arcade of panelled arches survive, along with vestiges of wall paint possibly from a medieval text.
227 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c. 1008; Long, Guide to the Parish Church of St Peter. 228 Long, Guide to the Parish Church of St Peter. An early ‘pavement’ there was mentioned in 1728: ‘John Loveday, ‘Tour no. 1’ (transcription by Sarah Markham, kindly supplied by John Markham, May 2017). The tiles were not visible in 2018. 229 For conjectural phase plans, Long, Guide to the Parish Church of St Peter. 230 Mapledurham Map (1587). For a supposedly Norman arch (no longer visible) at the base of the tower, Brewer, Oxon. 339. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 19
The north aisle
No significant changes are known until 1605, when a gallery (removed in 1878) was apparently added at the nave’s west end.231 In 1643 the tower seems to have been severely damaged during the siege of Reading,232 its upper part replaced by a wooden ‘spire’ before 1663 when a dated weathervane was added.233 The spire was itself replaced early in the 18th century by a square wooden tower with a balustrade and pinnacles,234 and some of the north windows were possibly also repaired or replaced.235 Seventeenth- and 18th-century fittings include a communion table in the south chapel (moved there from the chancel), several chairs, and royal arms commemorating the Restoration, also formerly in the chancel;236 the table dates possibly from 1688, when work on the chancel was being carried out.237 Memorial tablets from the same period, some now lost, included those of the Brigham and Craven families.238 A ‘south aisle’ mentioned in 1770239 was presumably an internal division, since no south aisle is shown on early drawings of the church. The pulpit then stood in the centre of the nave, with a clerk’s desk below.240 The 19th century saw successive phases of restoration.241 A first stage was carried out in two steps by the local architect Arthur Billing, who in 1847 ‘improved’ and partially
231 Based on date formerly on a beam in the tower: Berks RO, R/D138/3/3/1 (notes made in 1729); ‘John Loveday, ‘Tour no. 1’; Wing, ‘Old Caversham’; Long, Guide to the Parish Church of St Peter, 10. 232 J. Ridgway, ‘Brief Account of Caversham, Oxon.’, Jnl of the British Archaeol. Assocn 17 (1861), 201--4. 233 John Loveday, ‘Tour no. 1’; weathervane (displayed in chancel, 2017). Cf. Berks RO, D/P162/5/1 (new door to steeple spire, 1680). 234 John Loveday, ‘Tour no. 1’ (mentioning leadwork dated 1712); Par. Colln, I, 78. For illustrations, e.g. Bodl. MS Don. c 91, f. 91; illustrations and photos in Reading Central Library. 235 Ridgway, ‘Brief Account of Caversham, Oxon.’, 204; cf. Long, Guide, suggesting that the middle three may have been added in the 15th century and re-set when the aisle was rebuilt some decades later. For an order of 1759 to make one or two windows in the N side of the church: OHC, MS Oxf. Archd. Oxon. d 13, f. 56v. 236 Long, Guide to the Parish Church of St Peter. 237 Berks RO, D/P162/MF94056/5/1. The table has been altered by the addition of casters. 238 John Loveday, ‘Tour no. 1’; Par. Colln, I, 78--9; Wing, ‘Old Caversham’. 239 OHC, MS Oxf. Archd. Oxon. b 23, f. 15. 240 Wing, ‘Old Caversham’. 241 Long, Guide to the Parish Church of St Peter, 5--7. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 20
restored the chancel and added stained glass in the east window.242 Ten years later a door and Gothic-style window were inserted in the chancel’s south wall, a vestry (separately designed by Poulton and Woodman) was added on the north side of the north chapel, and part of the north wall was demolished to make an organ recess, while the nave was re- pewed and a new pulpit installed in its south-east corner.243 In 1878 the south aisle (with seating for 120 people) was added in Early English style, the gallery removed, the west end of the north aisle rebuilt, and the dilapidated wooden tower and brick porch rebuilt in stone, all to designs by Joseph Morris of Reading. The cost was £3,463, of which the vicar and the lay rector H.J. Simonds each met a sixth.244 The vestry was enlarged in 1883 by Albert Dodd, a local builder who had carried out the restoration in 1878 and who incorporated into his vestry extension an east door with a two-light tracery window above.245 In 1924 the chancel was extended by 10 feet and the south (Lady) chapel added, to designs of J.N. Comper, who also designed Perpendicular style stalls and screens for the chancel. The chancel’s medieval aumbry and the medieval glass in its east window were moved to the new chapel, while the chancel received a new east window by Percy Haydon- Bacon. The total cost was £4,000. Later changes included a refurnishing of the south chapel in 1946, including addition of low wooden screens in memory of William Wood (rector 1932-- 42) and of a new altar; provision of kitchen and toilets at the west end in 1975; refurbishment and screening of the north chapel in 1991, following removal of the pipe organ and refitting as a choir vestry and meeting room in 1987; creation of a children’s area in the north aisle in 2010, necessitating removal of four or five pews; and insertion of glass porch doors in 2013. The organ was replaced in 1987 and again in 2015.246
St John the Baptist, Kidmore End
Kidmore End church, built in Early English style in 1851--2, is an attractive structure of flint with stone dressings, consisting of nave, apsidal chancel, clergy and choir vestries, north porch, and open bellcote with a single bell.247 The rib-vaulted polygonal apse, which resembles that of St Laurence, Tidmarsh, incorporates shafts of Purbeck marble, and the
242 Bodl. MS Top. Oxon. d 42, f. 14; Gardner’s Dir. Oxon. (1852), 705. 243 Bodl. MS Top. Oxon. c 103, f. 203; Berks RO, D/P162/8/3; OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. d 795, ff. 12, 23; Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1883 edn); Ridgway, ‘Brief Account of Caversham, Oxon.’, 204--5. For an earlier, pedimented chancel door, Bodl. MS Top. Oxon. b 220, f. 220. 244 Berks RO, D/P162/6/34/1; OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c. 1008; MS Oxf. Dioc. 2206, no. 35; Reading Mercury, 4 Oct. 1879 and 7 Oct. 1882; Bodl. G.A. Oxon c. 317 (6); Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1883 edn). 245 OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c 350, f. 79; MS Oxf. Dioc. c. 1008; Claiden Yardley and Merry, ‘Caversham St Peter’, 23--4. 246 Berks RO, D/P162/6/34/8--9; OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c. 1008; Caversham Parish Mag. Jan. and April 1925; Tyack and Pevsner, Berks (2010), 479; poster display in church (June 2017). 247 Following account based on: OHC, MS Oxf. Dioc. c. 1876; Smith-Masters, The History of Kidmore End, 9--15; Pevsner, Oxon. 366, 672--3; Gardner’s Dir. Oxon. (1852), 706. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 21
building’s overall cost was £1,600. The architect was Arthur Billing, and the builders Messrs Wheeler of Reading. The pulpit panels were decorated with mosaics by Antonio Salviati in 1868, and two years later Edith Palairet (of Kidmore House) paid for addition of a sanctuary step and an arcade of marble columns and coloured diaper work. Encaustic floor tiles are of the same date, while stained glass windows, five of those in the sanctuary by Warrington, were paid for at various times by local residents and clergy. An organ installed in 1867 (as a gift of Laura Palairet) was enlarged in 1896 and 1929, and refurbished in 2001. The present choir vestry was added by subscription in 1894, while the vicar paid for the central part of the apse arcade to be raised to form a reredos in memory of his aunt. A heating and ventilation system was installed in 1903. A later scheme for enlargement (in 1910) came to nothing, and the church retained 220 sittings in 1934, a later removal of pews leaving seating for 140 in 2017. Repair of the west wall in 2012 was supported by local donations totalling £50,000.248
St John the Baptist church, Kidmore End (2018)
Other Anglican Churches
St John the Baptist, Gosbrook Road (Lower Caversham)249 Built in 1887--8 at a cost of £5,187, St John’s is a large flint and stone building in eclectic medieval style, featuring a sweeping red-tile roof covering both nave and north and south aisles, a substantial south transept with a gable chimney and two tiers of windows, west and south entrances (the latter with a porch in the angle with the transept), and multiple buttresses. The fenestration mixes 13th- to 16th-century styles. As built it had 350 sittings, the contractor again being Messrs Wheeler of Reading, and the architects G. Fitzwilliam and E.P. Warren. Warren also designed the stained glass, chancel screen, font, and organ case. The Radcliffe family of Balmore House were generous benefactors, paying for the north aisle amongst other things,
248 www.oxford.anglican.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Final-Profile.pdf. 249 Acct based on: Tyack and Pevsner, Berks. (2010), 480; Dils, ‘From Village to Suburb’, 112. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 22
while the east window of 1898 was given by subscription in appreciation of the work of the rector of Caversham and of the first priest in charge. Lavatory and kitchen facilities were installed in 1978,250 and a garden of remembrance was added in the 1980s.
St John the Baptist church, Lower Caversham (2018)
St Barnabas, Emmer Green The red-brick, Arts-and-Crafts-influenced church of St Barnabas was built in 1924--5 to the designs of J.H. Willett,251 its wide segmental-headed windows incorporating stone tracery, and creating a light interior. The building has 250 sittings, and comprises chancel (with an attractive wooden ceiling), nave, and west porch; the roof supports a small western bellcote and a central pyramidal cupola. Stained glass was made by the churchwarden Percy Haydon-Bacon (of Surley Row) in his London studio, and the organ (by P.G. Phipps of Oxford) was given by John Hill of Caversham Place Park in 1929.252 A painted reredos was removed and the altar extended in 1958,253 while improvements in 1995 included reroofing, reflooring, and replacement of pews with upholstered seats.254 A large brick and glass parish centre was added at the north-west corner in 2009.255 The original corrugated-iron mission church of 1897, minus its spire, survives as a church hall immediately to the east.
St Barnabas church (2018)
250 Berks RO, D/P162E/6/1/6--7. 251 Tyack and Pevsner, Berks. (2010), 480. 252 Berks RO, D/P162D/28/8/1--4; plaque on organ. 253 Berks RO, D/P162D/6/1/2. 254 Emmer Green Past and Present, 48. 255 D/P162D/28/6/1--10. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 23
St Andrew, Albert Road (Caversham Heights) The medieval-style church of St Andrew, with 300 sittings, was built in 1910--11 for £5,500, incorporating chancel, vestries, and clerestoreyed nave with north and south aisles.256 The architects, James Haslam and Ernest Ravenscroft, were both residents of St Peter’s Avenue. The walls are of yellow Bargate stone and the windows mostly Perpendicular in style, while the slate roof supports a small bellcote. An altar was placed at the south aisle’s east end in 1936,257 and the chancel was refurbished ten years later, when a new oak high altar was installed with accompanying golden figures of angels supported in riddle posts, and new clergy stalls were fitted and a low screen constructed at the chancel’s west end. The existing choir stalls were removed, and new stalls inserted at the west end of the church.258 A Caen stone carving of the Madonna and Child was used in 1951 to fill a window opening in the south aisle’s east wall,259 and in 2011 bookshelves and cabinets were installed under the west window. An adjacent church hall was opened in 1925, and a larger hall added in 1961, the two being linked to the church by a corridor in 2007. The organ was overhauled and glass entrance doors inserted in 2017.260
St Andrew’s church (2018)
Non-Anglican Churches
Congregationalist Chapel (Grace Church), Peppard Road Erected in 1826--7, the building is a white-painted Gothic-style structure on a miniature scale, with lancet windows and a low, crenellated, three-stage tower.261 The roof is slated, and the walls primarily of Bath stone, though the north side is of brick, with flint hoods over the windows. A baptistery
256 Berks RO, D/P162/6/33 (plan); Kelly’s Dir. Oxon. (1915); Tyack and Pevsner, Berks. (2010), 480; www.standrewscaversham.org/history/; VCH fieldwork (2018). 257 Berks RO, D/P162C/6/2/6. 258 Ibid. D/P162C/6/2/9. 259 Ibid. D/P162C/6/2/11. 260 Folder of photos and cuttings from Caversham Parish Mag. in church. 261 C. Stell, Inventory of Nonconformist Chapels in South-West England (1991), 15; NHLE, no. 1113557. For its origins, above (relig. life: Reformn to 1843). VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 24
was installed in 1969.262 The church is now surrounded by early 20th-century houses, and is approached from the road down a narrow path.
Grace Church
Caversham Baptist Church, Prospect Street The imposing Baptist church, built in 1876-- 7 to designs by Alfred Waterhouse, is of red brick in a broadly Gothic style, and incorporates a solid corner tower with a pyramidal roof.263 Decorative effects include the use of stone window reveals and bands of lighter-coloured brickwork, decorative cornices, and blind arcading to the tower’s upper part, while the steep-pitched roof has tiles of different textures.264 The building replaced a nearby chapel of 1865--6 (from 1911 the West Memorial Institute, now apartments), which with its attached Sunday school hall of 1872 was also by Waterhouse. An organ was installed in 1894, and in 1905 a pulpit and choir stalls were added on a wooden platform, with a baptistery below.265 The interior was radically altered in 1980 when the pews and balcony were removed, and a kitchen, meeting rooms and toilets added.266 In 2017 there were plans to insert a first floor and move worship upstairs, allowing for creation of a ground-floor community hall.267 Caversham Baptist church (2018)
262 ‘Caversham Hill Chapel 1827--1977’ (typescript in Reading Central Library). 263 Tyack and Pevsner, Berks. (2010), 480; NHLE, no. 1113562; Williams, ‘Caversham Baptist Church (1875--77)’, incl. detailed description and plans. 264 Dils, ‘From Village to Suburb’, 111--12. 265 Tyack and Pevsner, Berks. (2010), 480; Sawyer and A. Shield, Caversham Baptist Free Church, 6; Williams, ‘Caversham Baptist Church (1875--77)’. 266 http://www.cavershambaptistchurch.org.uk/redevelopment/plans 267 https://www.baptist.org.uk/Articles/462329/Reading_church_unveils.aspx VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 25
Caversham Methodist Church, Gosbrook Road (Lower Caversham) The sizeable red- brick church of 1898--9, by Joseph Morris and Son, includes cream stone Gothic windows, stepped gables, and a small side tower with unusual stepped corner pinnacles.268 An organ was installed in 1903. The tower’s spire became unstable and was removed in 1958, and in the early 1980s the buckling walls were tied, the roof repaired, and pews replaced with chairs. The preceding school-chapel of 1891, also by Morris, survives as a church hall.
Caversham Methodist church (2018)
Caversham Heights Methodist Church, Highmoor Road Caversham’s second red-brick Methodist church was built in 1908--9 at a cost of £2,000, on land given by the Reading seed merchant J.C. Fidler.269 Designed by W.R. Morris of the Reading firm of Ravenscroft, Son, and Morris, the building incorporates an octagonal corner turret and stone Perpendicular- style windows. A lecture hall cum Sunday school was added in 1929 at a cost of £1,600, and extensions in 1961 and 1974 supplied meeting rooms, an enlarged lobby, and lavatories. The kitchen was enlarged in 1986, and an office and Wesley lounge were added in 1990,270 followed by further extensions in 2007. The organ, purchased in 1914, was overhauled in 1963 and rebuilt in 1981.
Caversham Heights Methodist church (2018)
268 Description based on Tyack and Pevsner, Berks. (2010), 480; Berks RO, D/MC5/1C/4/2 and 17; D/EX1638/16/1--2; Ayres and Sanders, As Stupid as Oxen; datestones. 269 For this and following: ‘Golden Jubilee Souvenir Handbook, Caversham Heights Methodist Church, 1909--1959’, pamphlet in Berks RO; J. Maul, ‘Caversham Heights Methodist Church: Origin and Early Days’, unpublished study (1994), copy in Berks. RO; Ayres and Sanders, As Stupid as Oxen; Tyack and Pevsner, Berks. (2010), 480; D. Cliffe, Praise in the Heights: The Centenary History of Caversham Heights Methodist Church, 1909--2009 (2009). 270 Berks RO, D/EX1638/21. VCH Oxfordshire • Texts in Progress • Caversham (August 2019) • © VCH Oxfordshire • Relig. Hist. • p. 26
Our Lady and St Anne Catholic Church, South View Avenue The present church, of red brick with stone dressings, stone plate-tracery, and a north-west tower, was built in stages during the early 20th century, to designs by Canon A.J.C. Scoles and his pupil G. Raymond.271 The first phase (in 1902--3) consisted of nave and sanctuary, with an adjoining presbytery. The tower was added in 1904, the south aisle in 1906, and the north aisle in 1932.272 A Norman-style shrine-chapel of Our Lady of Caversham was added in 1958--9 to designs by Anthony Bartlett and Douglas Purnell, supposedly incorporating stones from the medieval bridge chapel;273 within it is a north European statue of the Virgin and Child dating from c.1500, to which a gold and silver crown blessed by the pope was added in 1996. The entrance space was extended and a substantial octagonal meeting room was built on the church’s south side in 2003, and a major refurbishment began in 2017, the decoration of the shrine chapel (by Marcelo Lavallen) designed to enhance its appeal as a pilgrimage destination.
Our Lady and St Anne (2018)
271 Paragraph based on F.J. Angers, The Catholic Church in Caversham 1162--1933 (1933); Tyack and Pevsner, Berks. (2010), 480; www.ourladyandstanne.org.uk/church/history. 272 Angers, The Catholic Church in Caversham, 14. 273 Berks. Archaeol. Jnl 66 (1971--2), 4; Gillett, Restored Shrine of Our Lady of Caversham; J. Feeney, The Restored Shrine of Our Lady of Caversham [c.2009].