Ingaway Church
HISTORY
The origins of Ingaway Church
date from 1924. It started life in a small hut which was at first used as a Sunday School and then extended to become the Ebenezer Gospel Hall. It was founded by Charles Clark, who had moved to the area in the early 1920’s with his wife Emma, and was situated in Elizabeth Drive, now known as Wickhay, in Lee Chapel North, Basildon.
Founder Charles Clark with wife Emma
Charles Clark outside the Sunday School hut
Charles had become aware that a local alternative to the relatively distant Anglican churches of Laindon and Basildon was needed. After canvassing local opinion and receiving a favourable response, he purchased a plot of land in Elizabeth Drive. The small Sunday School hut was timber-clad inside and had a corrugated iron roof and sides.
It was not long before the 14-foot square building had become outgrown and, in 1926, Charles had the Ebenezer Gospel Hall built in front of it. It was of similar construction to the small Sunday school, but it had scrubbed pine floorboards and dark pine walls to match. There was a platform with three wooden stairs on each side at the front of the hall and two small rooms behind it, one used as the kitchen. The building was heated by four cast-iron ‘Glow-worm’ coal boilers which took up to four hours to reach full effectiveness. Gas lamps were used for lighting.
The mission thrived, with a Sunday morning service, Sunday School in the afternoon, and a service in the evening. Charles was licenced to perform weddings and, subsequently, his son Douglas was similarly licenced.
In the early 1960s, the new town of Basildon began to encroach around the Ebenezer Gospel Hall and a compulsory purchase was imminent. The congregation spent at least two years fundraising and when the day came in 1962 they had sufficient funds to purchase a piece of land from the Basildon Development Corporation (ironically numbered ‘Plot 666’) in a new road called Ingaway, in Lee Chapel South.
The congregation outside the Ebenezer Gospel Hall
The new Ingaway Church under construction
Charles passed away in 1964 and is buried at St Nicholas Church in Laindon, but he had the pleasure of seeing the new Ingaway Church finished. The new building is of a ‘Reema’ construction. This is a system of building using prefabricated concrete panels which was introduced in the late 1940s and continued as a form of construction until well into the 1960s. A brick facia was added.
In 1969, an extension was constructed to the north elevation to enlarge the church. Then, in 1972, a further extension was added to the south elevation towards the rear of the main church building. This equipped the church with a hall and enabled the kitchen to be moved from the front of the building to the rear.
