The Ebenezer Chapel and the Dockland Settlement Development

I have been trying to find out more about the development that is currently consuming the land that was formerly occupied by the Dockland Settlement, a considerably untidy community project that was a bit of an eyesore, but incorporated what was clearly once a rather nice chapel, the Ebenezer Chapel (a Norwegian place of worship and seamen mission), together with a contemporary two storey house, which was also obviously once very attractive.

It is all happening on the part of Rotherhithe Street that forks right off Salter Road, and is currently still marked on Google Maps as "Docklands Settlement Youth and Community Centre."  Southwark Council has this to say on the subject of the new development:

Planning application reference number 11-AP-2242
Proposal: Demolition of existing buildings, and erection of 28 residential dwellings (6x1 bed; 13x2 bed; 9x3 bed) within a part three, part four storey building at the southern end of the site with associated car parking, cycle storage and amenity spaces.  Erection of a new single storey community building (maximum height approximately 7 metres above ground) on the northern part of the site, accessed from Salter Road, providing general hall, meeting spaces and sports facilities, and a new flood-lit external sports pitch.

The Ebenezer Chapel and the attached house were recorded by archaeologists of the AOC Archaeology Group before it was demolished, and that 33 page report can be found here on the Archaeology Data Service website.:  "This was built in 1871 for the local Norwegian population. This building was recorded to Level 2 standard as defined by English Heritage Guidelines."  The photograph on this post is a screen-grab from that report, showing the Ebenezer Chapel, that stood at the site until recently.  There's a brief but good explanation of the background to the word Ebenezer (not a name, as I ignorantly thought, but from the Hebrew, meaning "stone of help") on the Missouri Conference website: http://www.moumethodist.org/news/detail/831 

If you're interested in the Scandinavian churches in Rotherhithe, there's an article on the subject from The Bridge available online at: http://www.southwark.anglican.org/thebridge/0912/0912p8.pdf.

The St Paul's Chapel (destroyed), Rotherhithe 1850 - 1955

Drawing copyright National Library of New Zealand
http://bit.ly/11e1KCB

The Anglican St Paul's Chapel, a chapel-of-ease to St Mary's Rotherhithe, was built in 1855 by  William Beatson and was badly damaged in the Second World War, perhaps destroyed.  There is some confusion about when it was finally demolished, but although it seems to have been decommissioned in 1955 records indicate that some part of it was in use on the site until the 1970s. 

St Paul's was located at Ram Alley, later Beatson Street, close to Surrey Canal School which later became St Pauls School (TQ360804). Today it is the site of Peter Hills with St Mary and St Paul School. William Beatson's descendents live in New Zealand and the plans of the church are registered with the National Library of New Zealand (rightt). 

(sources: http://www.southwark.anglican.org/downloads/lostchurches/ROT06.pdf and http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1558312).

Some lovely water-colour diagrams of the Chapel can be found on the National Library of New Zealand website at: http://bit.ly/12bFuhu

In the 1912 "A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 4" it is described as follows:

The church of ST. PAUL in Beatson Street, a chapel of ease to the parish church, consists of a chancel, nave of five bays, north vestry and south porch. It is built of yellow stock brick with stone detail, and is designed in 13th-century style with an effectively high-pitched slated roof and small lancet windows. It was built in 1850. There is an ample churchyard now used as a small park. (http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43036) 

The architect, William Beatson, was a member of the successful shipbuilding company and family business John Beatson, and had shipbuilding interests in his own right.  He sketched the tragic mastless remains of the Temeraire (immortalized in Turner's "Fighting Temeraire") as she sat in Rotherhithe waiting to be broken up by the John Beatson yeard in 1838 (the sketch can be seen on one of my earlier posts here: http://russiadock.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/rotherhithe-heritage-9-1825-1843.html). And in fact, the chapel was renovated in the late 1800s using timbers salvaged from the HMS Temeraire.