Description

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31/0/10456

Golders Green
HOOP LANE
No 31½ , Golders Green Unitarian Church

(Formerly listed as No 31½ , Unitarian Chapel)

23-JUL-04

II
Unitarian church. Opened 1925. George Reginald Farrow and Sydney R Turner architects. Red brick with Portland stone dressings. Exterior in the Byzantine revival style, with a pedimented entrance bay with inscribed frieze which reads RELIGION : TRUTH : LIBERTY; arched doorway flanked by inset columns with cushion capitals; thermal window above.

INTERIOR: plaster groin-vaulted ceiling, large arched windows to either side; wooden lobby screen incorporating a carved oak memorial to Rev. Joyce Daplyn (d.1931), first Unitarian woman minister in London. Over the door is an Art Deco stained glass window showing the celestial city above a forest setting, by Joan Fullerlove: it is surrounded by a tempera mural by Margaret Warren in a Florentine Revival style, with full-length figures flanking the entrance, with an angel hovering over a golden chalice above. The semi-circular apse with half-dome above sports a notable tempera mural on canvas by Ivon Hitchens RA (1892-1979), executed in 1920-21, depicting the River of the Waters of Life: the inscriptions (in Gothic letters) read 'The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace' and 'the leaves of the tree were for the healling of the nations'. Fittings include a pulpit made by Belgian refugees during the First World War.

HISTORY: the Golders Green Unitarian congregation seceded from the Rosslyn Hill Chapel, Hampstead in 1903. This building, erected at a cost of £7,500, was designed by a member of the congregation. Architecturally somewhat old-fashioned for its day, this is nonetheless a notable interwar place of worship which possesses some remarkable decoration. Hitchens, best known as an abstract painter, here executed a fine mural in tempera which drew on Florentine Renaissance sources as well as tapestry designs by Morris & Co. for inspiration. This is a larger version of his 'Forest Scene with Animals', a work executed in 1919-20 for St Luke's Church, Maidstone.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27087050

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)