Tin Tabernacles (3)
Many corrugated iron churches were intended to be temporary solutions meeting an immediate need and buying time for the parishioners to raise the funds needed to meet the costs of a permanent structure. This was the case in the Surrey village of Frimley Green where in 1896 a tin church was built on the site now occupied by St Andrew’s.
Contemporary reports indicated some of the disadvantages of its building material. When it rained, the sound of the raindrops drowned out the sermon and in the summer it could become uncomfortably. By 1906 it struggled to accommodate the congregation which had grown to around 250 members and so the following year a fundraising effort was launched to pay for a permanent church. The parishioners hit some bumps along the way, their spring fete having to be postponed because of the death of King Edward VII in May 1910, but by July 1911 funds, boosted by a loan from the Diocese of Winchester, were sufficient for work to begin.
The extant St Andrew’s church was completed, at a cost of £3,036, in time for the Easter celebrations in 1912, but the diocesan loan proved to be a mixed blessing. It was not until 1928 that the church was consecrated, once the loan had been paid off.
A little further down the road is a tin church, which, doubtless to the chagrin of William Marris, still stands proud and erect. Built in 1901 and hosting its first recorded service on Palm Sunday that year, it was designed to serve the spiritual needs of the garrison at Deepcut. It cut an impressive figure with its white walls, dark green roof, and dark green trim and even made its cinematic debut, albeit relocated to Kentucky, in Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014).
Originally dedicated to St Michael and All Angels, it was renamed on October 1, 1967 St Barbara’s Garrison Church after the Royal Army Ordnance Corps’ Patron Saint and listed as a Grade II building, one of fewer than twenty to receive the accolade, in 1984. Its listing has probably saved it, as following the sale of the former barracks at Deepcut to developers who are constructing the massive Mindenhurst housing estate, the church has been completely renovated. Work on the exterior finished in December 2023 and it is anticipated that the church will host services once more sometime in 2025.
How many tin churches have actually survived to this day seems, curiously, a matter of some dispute. Historic England claim that there are eighty-six remaining in England, some still used for worship, like St Barbara’s, some now used for other purposes, such as Christ Church in Blackgang on the Isle of Wight which is now a holiday home, or moved to museums such as St Chad’s Mission Church which can now be found at Blists Hill Museum near Telford in Shropshire. Harriet Suter, though, while researching for her Master’s dissertation on the conservation challenges of tin tabernacles claims to have found 157.
Whatever the exact number is the tin tabernacle is a fascinating example of new technology meeting a pressing spiritual need.
