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St John the Evangelist's Church,
Church Street,
Newhall, Swadlincote, Derbyshire.

Cemeteries

This Church has (or had) a graveyard.

Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

This Place of Worship was founded in 1833, and we understand it is still open.

Originally, "Stanton and Newhall" formed a township which belonged to the parish of Stapenhill. Newhall was created a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1835, but Stanton remained annexed to the parish of Stapenhill. A civil parish of "Stanton and Newhall" was created in 1866, which was added to Swadlincote Urban District in 1893 - a "civil partnership" which is believed to survive to the present day.

The Church of St John, at Newhall, was erected "about 1833", at a cost, including residence and school, of £7,000. It is of brick, in the Gothic style, consisting of chancel, nave, western porch and a pinnacled tower at the west end containing a clock and 6 bells. The chancel was added in 1884, when the church was restored. An organ to the memory of the Rev. J. and Mrs Clay of Stapenhill was added in 1910. In the church is a shrine and an oak pulpit erected as a memorial to the parishioners who fell in the Great War, 1914-1918. There were 500 sittings. The parish records date from 1833.

The return to the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/375/3/13/19) for "St John's Church, a District Church under 1 & 2 Wm. IV c.38" at Newhall describes a building erected "jointly by Revd. Joseph Clay, Revd. John Clay, & Miss Sarah Clay", and consecrated on July 9th 1834, at a cost of £2640. There were free sittings for 250, and 190 "other sittings" - a total of 440 in all. Presumably the cost of building the residence and school accounted for the other £4360, but what's more, the Incumbent, R.T. Burton, who completed the return, remarked that "the Church will not conveniently hold 440"! The estimated number in the congregation on March 30th was 52 in the morning, 151 in the afternoon, and 71 in the evening, with 125 and 131 Sunday Scholars in the morning and afternoon respectively.

In 1857, according to White's Directory of that year, the Rev. R.T. Burton was the treasurer and honorary secretary of the Literary Institute, which was established in Newhall in 1854, for the surrounding neighbourhood. It was held in a club room adjoining the George Inn, lent by William Brunt.

Evidently St John's had a predecessor, as White's Directory of 1857 mentions a former chapel, which was given to Burton Abbey by William the Conqueror. Apparently this went out of use at the Reformation. Perhaps its site was that marked as "Ruin" on the east side of Park Street in 1960.

Denomination

Now or formerly Church of England.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here, or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Church is located at OS grid reference SK2920320652. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St John the Evangelist's Church, Newhall, Swadlincote shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Swadlincote shown on a Google Map.
• Streetmap.co.uk (arrow on map shows the Place of Worship's location) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Bing (Ordnance Survey option) (verified 2018-10-13)
• Bing Maps ('Bird's Eye' View) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Ordnance Survey "getamap" (NB some of the 'Change Map' options may require a subscription) (verified 2018-10-15)
• OpenStreetMap (Maps © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA) (verified 2018-10-15)
• A Vision of Britain Through Time - useful for Boundary Changes (verified 2018-10-15)
• www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays) (verified 2018-10-15)