Project overview
A time sensitive project to conduct Oral History with St Matthew’s, Upper Clapton. Mr. Andrew Gillett, Lay Minister of St. Thomas’, Clapton Common (St Matthews’ group ministry lead); and myself will conduct and manage the interviews over three months in London and in Greater London.
St Matthew’s is closing; the Church of England is ceasing faith services there and will decommission (deconsecrate) the building, unmooring its remaining parishioners from their faith anchor.
The first church of St Matthew in Upper Clapton was temporarily built in 1866; one of 13 Victorian ‘church plants’ from St John at Hackney – it’s mother church. The permanent church laid its foundation stone on 21 September 1867 and the church was consecrated in 1869.
Although the church and its parishioners survived a bombing in World War II (rebuilt in 1950) and a devastating fire in 1977 (downsized and rebuilt in 1979), it has been unable to weather the competing forces of gentrification and the precipitous decline of its congregation since 2010.
Lost Anchors is a short and strategic exercise to capture data, consider foundational social and theoretical issues, and record the narratives of a disappearing generation.
St Matthew’s is closing; the Church of England is ceasing faith services there and will decommission (deconsecrate) the building, unmooring its remaining parishioners from their faith anchor.
The first church of St Matthew in Upper Clapton was temporarily built in 1866; one of 13 Victorian ‘church plants’ from St John at Hackney – it’s mother church. The permanent church laid its foundation stone on 21 September 1867 and the church was consecrated in 1869.
Although the church and its parishioners survived a bombing in World War II (rebuilt in 1950) and a devastating fire in 1977 (downsized and rebuilt in 1979), it has been unable to weather the competing forces of gentrification and the precipitous decline of its congregation since 2010.
Lost Anchors is a short and strategic exercise to capture data, consider foundational social and theoretical issues, and record the narratives of a disappearing generation.
