Let us begin our Sunday walk around the historical places of Protestant non-conformity half way up Mattison Road. This closed church was once the home of
Mattison Road, and later Harringay, church. Seating 400, the building is of brick with stone dressings, in a
Decorated style
Opened as an iron tabernacle in 1891 it was replaced by a permanent church and halls in 1901. A schoolroom was registered in 1900.
Originally sponsored by the Caledonian Road circuit of the
Primitive Methodists, the church joined the Finsbury Park circuit after the Methodists’ union in 1931.
Peeking through the door, one Sunday in 1903, when membership was rising and Mattison Road was described as the chief Primitive Methodist church in London, you could have counted 188 devotees in the morning and 240 in the evening.
Pictures of the interior
here
The organs were built in 1904 by local church organ builders,
Rest Cartwright, in Park Road
A minister was shared with Grange Park from 1931 to 1942 and thereafter with Finsbury Park. Closed in 1963 it became a
Roman Catholic church until its closure in 2009. Its next incarnation is
uncertain although locals have many ideas for it.
Let us head up to Wightman Road and to the
Hornsey Tabernacle, Wightman Road, which was registered for undenominational worship in 1893.
In 1903 it was used by ‘disciples of Christ’, with an average attendance on one Sunday of 58 in the morning and 118 in the evening, Later, in 1912, it was registered as Hornsey Church of Christ.
In 1969,members joined Harringay Congregational church to form
Harringay United church, on Green Lanes, whereupon the Wightman Road site was sold to the The United Apostolic Faith Church who renovated the former Hornsey tabernacle in 1970 and which is now known as the
Gospel Centre.
Finally let us double back a little to near the corner of Hampden Road to finish at
Willoughby Road Wesleyan Methodist church which opened as a Sunday school chapel in 1885, on land acquired in 1882 .
Classrooms were built in 1889 and a church, perhaps replacing an iron one, was opened on the corner site to the east in 1893.
A lecture hall and more classrooms were added to the north in 1903, when on one Sunday there were attendances of 822 in the morning and 1,124 in the evening.
The congregation, which belonged to the Finsbury Park circuit, was joined by many from Mattison Road in 1963.
After a fire in 1973, Willoughby Road church was replaced by a yellow-brick structure which, with the adjoining schoolroom in Hampden Road, seated 300. The brick hall opened in 1903 was bought with the empty corner site by Haringey L.B. and survived in 1976.
Source: Hornsey, including Highgate - Protestant nonconformity | British History Online