Erection date: 25/4/1959
To the glory of God and in remembrance of his goodness in bringing together in the year 1941 Upton Chapel and Christ Church, this stone is laid on 25th April 1959 by J. Rider Smith.
Minister - Rev. P. Saunders MA, MSc
Architect - P. J. Darvall, BA, ARIBA
In WW2 both Upton Chapel and Christ Church were badly bombed. Both were demolished (except for Lincoln Tower here) and the two congregations joined together at a new, smaller, church here, built as part of an office block. The church, which was also used as a cafe, occupied the space behind the stunning modernist screen.
Site: Christ Church and Lincoln Tower (3 memorials)
SE1, Westminster Bridge Road, Lincoln Tower
The 1873 stone is on the north-east elevation of the tower, that's the wall facing left out of our picture. It's at knee height, below a window across what was surely the original entrance. The 'Lincoln Tower' stone is also on this face, but higher up. To see the 1959 plaque you have to go up the modern steps to the right of our photo and look low down, to the right of the concrete screen.
Architect.com gives "The church on the ground floor is 1958-1960 and the office block 1972-1976, both by the architect Peter John Darvall. It is now an academy."
In 1849 the congregation at the Surrey Chapel had raised a fund to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Rowland Hill, their first pastor. When the lease of that chapel was due to expire that fund was used by their pastor, Newman Hall, to acquire this site on which to build a complex of mission buildings including the Congregational church, and, in 1867, a new Hawkstone Hall to replace that on Westminster Road which had been swallowed up by the expansion of Waterloo Station. Hawkstone Hall being named for Rowland Hill's birthplace.
In 2014 the whole church site was converted to house the school, Oasis Academy Southbank, with the chapel becoming the sports hall.
