St Anselms Church

A Memory of Hatch End.

This is an unusual view of St Anselm's as I don't recall ever standing on the churchyard flowerbeds! My own routine was arriving in the last few seconds before the vicar and choir processed into church for 9.30 Parish Communion service! This meant that the view I got was a hasty glance at the church porch steps as I rushed inside - along with the many other latecomers from the church youth club!

The church has a huge plot within Westfield Park, a crescent close to Hatch End railway station. The church bell would toll during the solemn moments of consecration of the bread and wine and be heard by nearby residents and railway passengers on the station platforms!

This was a thriving and happy church in the 1950s and 1960s with strong links to the youth club, the 1st Hatch End Scout Group and the local Guides and Brownies. I married there in 1971 and moved away from the area - like most young people in the late 1960s and early 1970s.   Hatch End became far too expensive an area to buy a home so sadly St Anselm's Church gradually lost its younger members of the congregation. I was confirmed in this church by the Bishop of London in 1959 and have always felt a great affection for St Anselm's even though I now live 200 miles away in Devon.