That brutal assessment of St. James’ Church in Hampton Hill in the 1860s was delivered by a commentator at the time. Since then a number of significant updates, including a tower, today give us the handsome building in the photograph below.

St. James church
What would become Hampton Hill was originally the southern corner of Hounslow Heath, an area used as common land for grazing animals. It was well known as a haunt for highwaymen and footpads, (the latter an old term for robbers who specialised in pedestrians as their victims). As mentioned in my first post, a deterrent - otherwise known as a gibbet - for the punishment of these criminals stood at the corner where Hampton Hill meets Burton’s Road.
In the early 1860s large projects including the Thames Valley Railway Line extension, the building of Hampton Water Works and the development of the local nursery trade brought large numbers of hard drinking labourers and artisans into an area already afflicted with poor living conditions, many existing in “miserable hovels”. Public affrays became commonplace, notably in the local public houses. With no facilities or services in the area, and abundant poverty, drunkenness and violence were widespread. The shacks in which these people lived gradually developed into a community on the common which was described as “a wilderness with a number of habitations of the most wretched kind, inhabited by a still more wretched class of people”. Fuel for the gibbet? It might have been busier than I first thought.
Less than a year after the Revd James Burrows was appointed vicar of St Mary’s, Hampton in 1861, it was decided a new church, the District Chapelry of St James, must be built to try and help with the increasingly grim situation.
The mother parish of St Mary’s gave some of its glebe land for this purpose, and a simple church, with a nave, a chancel and a small vestry room, was built. Once finished Revd Fitzroy John Fitz Wygram was appointed vicar, and on December 11th 1863 the building was consecrated by Bishop Tait, Bishop of London.

An artist's impression of St. James in the 1860s, pretty much as it looked when it earned the "accolade" that provides the title of this post
The Common, as Hampton Hill and the near surrounding area was known back then, was described as “a miserable area inhabited by an even more miserable brand of people” and the little district chapelry of St James as “a barn of a church in a wilderness of a parish”. Revd Fitz Wygram and his wife devoted their lives, and much of their fortune, towards improving the living conditions and prospects of the parishioners. As a consequence matters did improve, and people began to patronise the little church.

St. James, with tower, so this photograph dates from post-1889
Ten years after it had been consecrated, in 1873, work began enlarging the church, and from 1887 to 1889 a tower was built. That’s exactly the period during which plans to build a tower at St. Alban of the Martyr in Teddington were abandoned due to a shortage of funds. (See June 21st Post 78 for more).
In 1893 a clock was provided by Smith of Derby.
Obtained from St Peter's Church, Eaton Square in 1874, St. James’ boasted a three manual pipe organ by Bishop. It was rebuilt and expanded by Hele and Co in 1912 and 1951, and again in 1997 by John Males when new stops were added from St Mary’s church in Twickenham.
A specification of the organ exists on the National Pipe Organ Register.


Red arrow: Road bridge
Blue arrow: Rough location of gibbet
Green arrow: St. James’ church
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