To Rebuild or Not to Rebuild

Richard Stewart Jones, honorary secretary of the Chelsea Society, was very active in overcoming the decision not to rebuild.

‘But as War Damage Funds were allocated to Churches with parishes. Before the war the Old Church was not a Parish Church. There was never any doubt in the minds of anybody connected with the Old Church that it would not be rebuilt. There were many delegations and discussions during one of which Richard was informed by some Ecclesiastical authority that it is unlikely money would be available.

Richard said:

“The Old Church certainly had not a parish, but it never ceased to have a congregation”.

The truth of this will be recognised by the many who worshipped in the war years and after, in the ruins of the More chapel, in a hospital ward, in a bomb shelter. This truth may well have influenced the official decision to allow war damage for a parish-less church.

Even before the money was granted, Richard marshalled his friends to action; he found a school about to be demolished in Kent with the right period bricks and led parties there to collect these. Mr. Pole the builder who lived nearby provided a lorry, petrol was contributed from everyone’s meagre resources, and volunteers, undergraduates, councillors, men and women of all ages, drove up and down on several Sundays collecting bricks.

The first part of the rebuilding was done by ‘unprofessional hands.’

(Richard Stewart-Jones, as remembered by his friends. Privately printed 1980)