Historical themes in the Diocese of London: Faith and Worship
Where might I find accounts of church services?
The raw parish records can be difficult to trace, but can also survive in unexpected places. As well as looking in the diocesan record office at the London Metropolitan Archives to see if they have been deposited there, you may find it worth around in cupboards in a church vestry or asking the clergy or churchwardens of the parish if they know of any that survive or if you can poke around in any dusty cupboards in the vestry. Parish magazines and newsletters might survive in local studies collections.
Visitation records can be consulted in Lambeth Palace Library or the London Guildhall. For correspondence to the bishop on a parish see the Fulham papers in Lambeth Palace library; for newspaper coverage see the collections now being transferred from Colindale newpaper library to the main British Library site where they join periodicals; in many cases these are also now available in digital and searchable form either on the library site or through a subscribing institution. For the results of surveys into London religion, which can describe what went on, see Charles Maurice Davies, Orthodox London: or phases in the religious life of the Church of England (1873), which gives accounts of particular churches.
A particularly interesting source is the survey of London churches was undertaken in the 1840s for the editor of the Times: ‘The principal clergy of London classified according to their opinions on the great church questions of the day’. This is held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, (Ms Add. C. 290), but it is hoped to mount a transcript on this website.
