St Christopher's, Hinchley Wood

Hinchley Wood church is dedicated to St Christopher, patron saint of travellers, because the first services here took place from 1933 in a ballroom attached to Esher Filling Station. Its altar was donated by the House of Compassion in Thames Ditton and, in the general sub-Dearmer manner of the time, it was surrounded by curtains in the liturgical colours hung on rails. The first baptism took place using a milk pan lent by a local dairy owner.

The new church, sort of small-town Italy filtered through post-War modernism, dates from 1953 and it shows rather beautifully what had become expected of a parish church in the Church of England at that time. The font is older than the church itself, having been donated by Holy Trinity, Claygate; there was a wooden reredos (if you can call it that) and before long a Lady Chapel with the sacrament reserved. The church has a variety of very striking glass, both stained and engraved. The piscina and sedilia are typical of the mid-20th century, as are the twin pulpits facing one another across the church - let us remind ourselves of Stoneleigh, for instance. The statue of St Christopher carrying the Christ Child outside the church dates from 1975.

The church underwent a major reordering a couple of decades ago. You can just about see the outline of the old pews on the floor, while a new altar sits on a circular carpeted dais (I know I'm wasting my time complaining that the old altar is completely visible from the whole of the church, so eastward-facing is perfectly reasonable in this space) adn the reredos stands in an aisle - the aisles are so narrow it's very hard indeed to get a picture! The old altar frontals (that green one is so very, very 1960s, but they aren't all like that) are displayed around the walls, a unique decision as far as I know.

It's fun to learn that the makeshift spirit of St Christopher's early days survived in the permanent church - one of its first churchwardens organised a collection of silver from the congregation that was then melted down and used to make the cross and candlesticks, borrowing a precedent from the ancient Israelites!