Lost Churches

Here is a list of churches that have, as far as I know, been demolished. This is a list in progress:

• Bayford, St Mary. Slightly north of the present church were a medieval church and then its replacement of 1804 that was demolished in 1870. A few monuments and the font remain in the present church.
• Broadfield. A lost village whose church was a chapel of ease to Rushden. It appears to have been disused by the mid 16th century. The site is reputed to have been in Chapel Wood. Broadfield is now within Cottered parish.
• Cheshunt, Little St Mary also called Windmill Lane Mission and St Mary’s Mission. A mission church serving the eastern part of the town between the Railway Station and Cheshunt Pond. It was about where Roundwood Drive is now and functioned between 1913 and 1976.
• Flaunden, St Mary Magdalene. Actually in Buckinghamshire near Latimer but replaced in 1838 by the current church in Hertfordshire above the Chess valley.
• Harpenden, All Saints Mission Church. Built in 1887 and replaced by the current All saints in 1965.
• Harpenden, St John the Baptist, corner of Crabtree Lane and Southdown Road. The ‘paper’ church as it had a timber framework filled in with frail material. It was destroyed by a fire on 31st December 1905 and replaced on a different site by the current St John.
• Hemel Hempstead, St Peter, Galley Hill, Gadebridge. Open 1964 and Demolished in October 2013 after being disused since 2004. Aerial views of its demolition can be seen here
• Hertford, All Saints. Destroyed by fire in 1891 and replaced on the same site by the current All Saints.
• Hertford, Christ Church, Port Vale (1868-1960s) only the schoolhouse now used as a little theatre remains. The vestry arch and a capital are preserved in private ownership.
• Hertford, Christ’s Hospital Girls School Chapel. A large gothic chapel built in 1906 to designs of Alex R. Stenning on the corner of Ware and Mill Roads just east of Hertford town centre. It was replaced by Tesco’s car park after the school left Hertford in 1985. See more here.
• Hertford St Andrew. Demolished in the 1860s and replaced by the current St Andrew which at that time retained the old tower. This was also replaced in 1874.
• Hertford St John. Next to the Priory. Amalgamated with All saints parish c.1640.
• Hertford St Mary’s Priory dismantled at the dissolution. very close to the existing Roman Catholic Church in the town.
• Hertford, St Nicholas, near the modern Maidenhead Street. Demolished in 1675
• Hitchin, St Andrew Mission Church, Hollow lane/St Andrew’s Street. Built in 1874 as the Plait Hall by C.A. Bartlett, it failed as an enterprise and was converted into rooms on the ground floor and a mission church on the first floor. Services had previously been conducted in St Andrew’s School. It was served from St Mary’s barely a quarter of a mile away and was closed and demolished in 1928.The site is now housing.
• Hitchin St John the Baptist Mission Church, St John’s Road. near the top of Hitchin Hill it was originally a chapel for the Particular baptists also called Bulls Barn. It was sold into private ownership in 1868 to C.W. Wilshere who restored it and it became served by St Mary’s Church. Listings in the town Guide suggest that it closed around 1963 and the site is now housing.
• Oxhey, St Francis, Oaklands Avenue. In the parish of St Matthew. Closed in 1970 and now the site of St Francis Close. More information and pictures here.
• Potters Bar, St Francis Xavier (RC). Built in 1925 in Southgate Road and demolished by a German V2 rocket in 1945.
• Potters Bar, St John the Baptist, High Street. Built 1835 and designed by Edward Blore. It was demolished in 1970 and is now the site of the War memorial by Charles Voysey and moved here in 1972.
• Potters Bar, Saint Vincent De Paul & Louise De Marillac (RC). On the site of the old church, opened in 1962 to designs by Felix Velarde. Demolished and replaced by the 2005 church of Our Lady and St Vincent.
• Potters Bar, Our Lady of the Assumption (RC), Mutton Lane Built in 1950, originally to be a parish hall, demolished in 2004 and replaced on the same site in 2005 by the church of Our Lady and St Vincent. See http://olasv.org.uk/about/church-history/ for the details of the history of Potters Bar Roman Catholic churches
• St Albans, St Andrew. A wooden church built in 1954 to serve the New Greens Estate. It was a chapel of ease to Christ Church, Verulam Road which closed in 1974 (now offices). An arson attack in 2008 left it unusable and the newer part of the current Christ Church replaced it in 2010.
• South Oxhey. All Saints. A church by Seely & Paget built 1953 but demolished and replaced by the current church in 2000.
• Stevenage, St Andrew, Bedwell Crescent. Built in 1952, disused in 1963  and demolished in 1984. The dedication added to St George in the town centre.  See here for more information
• Walkern, The Assumption of Our Lord, Froghall Lane. A Roman Catholic Mass centre. Built in the 1960s and demolished in the 1980s. See here for more information.
• Watford, St George, Sandringham Road. Checking trade directories and St Albans diocesan records, this was a large iron church on a brick base (nave, north and south aisles and porch) between 105 and 111 Sandringham Avenue in a railed enclosure. Although when first built it was on St Albans Road as Sandringham Road was just being developed. It appears to have been built in 1905/06 and used until 1931 when St Mark in Leggatts Way opened. After that it was used as St George’s Hall but this is not listed after the 1937 directories and a Plymouth Bretheren Hall and housing is listed in 1940.  The site is now occupied by a hall containing Little Raccoons nursery and three houses.
• Wollensbrook Mission Church between Hertford Heath and Hoddesdon on the north side of the road just west of the current A10 bridge.
• Wood End, St Alban. A combined church and school built in a hamlet of Ardeley in 1853. Featured in the Illustrated London News (27 Aug 1853 p.164). Apparently built of small stones collected from fields by local children!

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