Wednesday 23 April 2014

St Paul’s Church, King Street, Ramsgate - The remains. A guest post by Benedict Kelly.

St Paul’s Church was located at the bottom of Artillery Road, on Ramsgate’s King Street.  The church had an entrance from King Street and a side entrance from Sussex Street. 
St Paul’s stood here for 80 years.  Part of the curved apse was retained.
1872 Map.  The site of the church was formely Artillery Place, a cul-de-sac of nine terraced houses, that were pulled down in 1873.  St Paul’s was consecrated on 22nd May 1874.
1907 map of St Paul’s Church.



St Paul’s was opened in 1873.  The Kent Coast Times, 20th November 1873 reported:  The architect is Mr R Wheeler of Tunbridge Wells, the builders being Messrs. Smith & Son of Ramsgate.  The dimensions are:  total length 68ft, width 29ft, height to apex of nave roof 83ft, accommodation 250, style, simple pointed.  The church will have a nave, chancel and in one aisle a vestry will be formed at the farther end of the aisle, and at the other end will be a porch.  The walls will be carried up to form a turret, whose height will be 150ft.  The church will be almost lighted by clerestory windows above the aisle roof, the nave roof being an open timber one with tie beams.  The walls are to be bricks of the neighbourhood, built hollow with a lining inside of red bricks.  There will be no internal plastering, the red bricks will be the finished face of the walls.  The nave will be divided from the aisle by columns of polished red Peterhead granite, supporting pointed arches of red and black brick.  The window cills, heads and mullions will be of bath stone.  The cost of the building, exclusive of site will be almost £1,150.
 
On King Street, this is now a walled up entrance.  Below, the remains of the gate hinge.

The ecclesiastical authorities felt St Paul’s was too small, so it was enlarged and remodelled in 1887.
The tower of St Paul’s on Sussex Street, and the same view today below.

The base of the tower still remains and was incorporated into a garage wall.


Above, the church boundary wall was retained to the rear of Barton Court.

Above, the grassed area was the central nave.  Wall retained to the right.

Above the nave, and the view to day below.  “The seats are entirely free and unappropriated” – Kent Coast Times 27th January 1887.


The demolition of St Paul’s, courtesy of SEAS Photography (The South East Archive of Seaside Photography), and Thanet District Council. The above photograph appeared in the East Kent Times on 13th February, 1959 accompanied with the following text:  Church authorities at Diocesan House, Canterbury, were asked by the East Kent Times and Mail reporter what would happen to some of the more valuable and useful articles in the building.  “Some of the windows have already been installed in St Mildred’s Church, Canterbury,” said a spokesman.  “The remainder are in the care of the Canterbury Cathedral glassworks.”  The spokesman said that such things as pews, desks and Bibles had been given to St George’s and Holy Trinity Churches, Ramsgate.  The Rood Cross, which is in the church’s war memorial, and the Crucifix from the side chapel, had been put in store.  The storing of these articles is under the Church Commissioners’ scheme.
The memorial stone for St Paul’s.  It was acquired by Mr Brian Fagg from the demolition contractors as they were about to smash it up.  It was transferred to St George’s Church.  It reads:  TO THE GLORY OF GOD, THIS STONE WAS LAID BY THE RT HON E.R KING HARMAN MP, JULY 29 1886.
The St Paul’s bell was presented to St Christopher’s Church, Newington, where it was dedicated on Sunday, 26th October 1958.  Around 10 years ago, the bell was gifted to a church in Africa.
Further reading:  St George-the-Martyr, also St Mary’s & St Paul’s Churches, Ramsgate, by Brian R Fagg, August 1977.
Occasional Ramsgate Writings by Donald G Long.  Published by Michael’s Bookshop, December 2008. 



Ed. Here is the link to the previous article about the church http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/orw/id4.htm

And the good news is that I think I have persuaded Ben to start his own blog. 

3 comments:

  1. Does its location really fall on a straight line from St Georges to the Church at the top of Thanet Hill ? One for the leyline enthusiasts in the hippy days. Interesting guest post.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My wife was brought up at Irdley Square but can find no images on google. Split flint and diamond leaded pane windows. So if you have anything on that and you can do another guest post be welcome.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very interesting article. I often pass the remaining walled area in King Street and wondered about the history. Thank you for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.