Mogerhanger Church

Mogerhanger church from the west November 2007

Until Mogerhanger became an ecclesiastical parish| in its own right, Church of England residents of the village would have travelled up to the parish church at Blunham for worship, baptisms, marriages and burials. By 1851, however, over 40% of the population of the parish was in Mogerhanger; a church was needed more locally to serve the needs of the community.  Mrs. Elizabeth Dawkins of Mogerhanger House, widow of the Revd. Edward Henry Dawkins, offered to build a church in the village in memory of her husband.  The church of St. John the Evangelist was built of Kempston stone and red sandstone from Silsoe, and was designed by William Slater in an early Norman style.  It has nave and aisles with a western entrance and south door, an extended north aisle, a pyramid roof capping the crossing tower, and an apsidal chancel.  Nicholas Pevsner described the exterior as ‘serious, bold and austere’. The builder was Conquest of Kempston. Work began with the laying of the foundation stone on 19 September 1859, and was completed the following year.

Inside, original furnishings included a carved stone font, an organ by Bevington (the gift of Col. Thornton of St. John’s House), the church plate and three stained glass windows in the apse, fine early examples of work by Clayton & Bell.  When in 1887-8 a new organ chamber was built on the north side of the tower (in the portion of the north aisle extended originally to form the vestry), a new organ by Richardson & Sons (of London and Manchester) was installed.  Later additions include a chancel screen, dedicated in 1912, and the installation of stained glass windows between 1881-1920 by makers Mayer & Co. of Munich, Hardman of Birmingham and Powell of Whitefriars.

The church was consecrated on 31 July 1860, and Moggerhanger became a separate ecclesiastical parish that same year, on 30 October. Note that Mogerhanger is the civil parish spelling and Moggerhanger the spelling of the ecclasiastical parish.

Most of the notes on the structural history of the church can be found in greater detail in Bedfordshire Historical Record Society Volume number 80 of 2001 Bedfordshire Churches in the Nineteenth Century: Part IV: Appendices and Index, put together by former County Archivist Chris Pickford from numerous sources some held by Bedfordshire & Luton Archives & Records Service and some held elsewhere or published.

Mogerhanger Church and vicarage about 1900