Battlebridge Farm. Circa 1870. With thanks to Margaret Murrell.
(Margaret's great great grandfather is holding the reins.
Battlebridge Farm no longer exists, but was farmed together with Chilmead Farm.)
Battlebridge Farm farmhouse. Unknown date. With thanks to Margaret Murrell.
Damage caused by parachute mine in Battlebridge Lane, Merstham. April 19th, 1941. Windsor Spice Ltd.
All Saints' Church.
The original All Saints' Church of South Merstham was built in 1897.
On the evening of Saturday 19th April, 1941, a parachute mine landed,
completely destroying the church, vicarage and nearby houses. Ten people were killed,
including one of the vicar's sisters. The vicar and his 2nd sister were badly hurt.
All Saints, Merstham. Unknown date. Unknown publisher.
South Merstham, Church & Vicarage. Unknown date. F. Frith & Co. Ltd.
All Saints' before the bombing. London Calling, June 1943.
This picture shows All Saints church in South Merstham in 1943, having been devastated by a parachuted land mine (meant for the nearby railway line) which killed 10 people in April 1941.
With thanks to Alex Hunter, author of "20th Century Merstham", which is available from the Ancient House Bookshop, Reigate.
London Calling, June 1943.
London Calling, June 1943.
Padre Hedley Wolfendale. London Calling, June 1943.
London Calling, June 1943.
London Calling, June 1943.
EIGHTEEN CANADIAN SOLDIERS REBUILD AN ENGLISH CHURCH.
Private Hedley Wolfendale of the Canadian R.A.M.C. arrived at South Merstham village, in Surrey, just after the
Nazi bombs had destroyed and injured the vicar ...
On Easter Sunday a BBC recording car visited the village of South Merstham, in Surrey, where a very touching ceremony
was taking place. This was the dedication of the new church of All Saints, which was to take the place of the old parish church destroyed by German bombs. It was a significant occasion, for the entire building of this new church was the voluntary work of eighteen Canadian sappers.
Two and a half years ago, a private serving in a field ambulance unit of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps arrived at the old church to find that it had just been completely destroyed by bombs. The Vicar's sister had been killed and the Vicar himself sent to hospital for six months.
Once Deputised for a Prize Fighter
The private's name was Hedley Wolfendale. Only after he had signed up did he reveal the fact that he was the Reverend Hedley Wolfendale, an Anglican clergyman. There was a waiting list for chaplains, so he volunteered as an ordinary soldier. He had been Anglican padre in the remote parish of Aylwin in the Gatineau country, north of Ottawa. Before that he was a missionary at Fort St. John in Northern British Columbia. He is used to overcoming difficulty. Once he deputised for a professional boxer in a prize fight - and won. He got across here in the last war, when he was fifteen, by stowing away.
When his ambulance unit arrived in the village, South Merstham had no church and no vicar. So Private Wolfendale took on the parish in the intervals of soldiering. His commanding officer helped, and so did his comrades; they did some of his work so that he could get away on Sundays. Once he was due for guard duty and at the same time due to conduct a Sunday service. He worked all day cleaning his equipment and managed to be chosen as 'stick man,' then smartest man on guard. That exempted him from duty. He uses the incident as a text to prove that besides having faith, you must work if you want results.
But this was not enough for Wolfendale. He had a plan for rebuilding South Merstham church, a beautiful and unconventional plan. When he got his commission he began to agitate for funds for the church. The Army hesitated to give permission; it might seem like intruding on an English domestic matter. For this Canadian padre wanted more than funds; he wanted Canadian soldiers to rebuild that church with their own hands. Eventually, after the big manoeuvres held last March, the OK was given and the Royal Canadian Engineers, of whom Wolfendale was now padre, started work. In five weeks, with only eighteen men working on it in their precious spare time, that little church was rebuilt by loving, willing and expert labour.
Padre Wolfendale told some of the story in a recent BBC broadcast. Speaking to his 'men' he said: 'Five weeks ago, you remember, we gathered together just on this spot here, and I told you what you were up against, and what you were going to do. I said : here's an opportunity to do something which will be lasting, something which will live long afterwards. And I asked you all to bear in mind that you were building a church, and you all have done. Only in the barber's shop last night they said : "My, I don't know how it is, but all those chaps are so keen about this job you'd think it was their own church in their own town they were building." Well, that's a marvellous spirit, and I want to say just one thing more to you : that you just pass by once. Well, you have passed by once, and you've done your job. It's the finest thing that anyone could do, to have the opportunity of building a church.'
Technically, this resurrecting of a church from its ruins in a mere five weeks was a wonderful piece of work. All of the material, except cement and sand, was salvaged from the wreckage of the old All Saints'. The salvaging itself was a tremendous labour; piecing together
window frames and bits of shattered glass, restoring damaged panelling and doorways, removing the scars of enemy action from the church furniture. Bricklayers and plasterers worked at top speed (they laid eight hundred bricks a day); carpenters did a tremendous job; painters completed their task in six days and used a good deal of paint and a lot more elbow grease.
This Spontaneous Gift
All Saints', where the Canadian and British flags now hang together by the alter, is a symbol and an inspiration. The Bishop of Southwark, when the church was appropriately dedicated on the Feast of the Resurrection, aptly compared it with the alter built by the three tribes on the other side of the river they had crossed. 'Because they thought the river was a barrier between themselves and the tribes they had left they built an alter on the river brink in order that future generations might understand that, whichever side of the river they were on, that alter was the testimony of a common faith ... This church, this spontaneous gift from a Dominion to a little town in the Motherland, is going to stand for generations, I hope, as a symbol of the link between our two peoples.'
"London Calling", British Broadcasting Corporation, June 6-12, 1943.
The Canadian built church still exists, but was renamed the "Canada Hall", and its future is currently (8/3/2004) under threat. The modern All Saints' Church was designed by E.F. Starling and was completed in 1951.
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